Tales from the Humber

September Newsletter Issue One

Hello to you all,

This is my first effort at a newsletter. I decided on a newsletter rather than a blog because I can imagine having a cup of tea and getting to know you. I could wish it was sitting in my pocket handkerchief garden, but although it isn’t raining, the sky is sulking under cloud. I hope to share my trials and tribulations with you every month.

Since Christmas, when I was advised to have a web site, an undertaking that felt like climbing Everest, it has been the worry of my life. I am not a natural with computer technology. I am amazed and daunted by what is possible but have a love hate relationship with computers. When I try to make documents, I can lose them within the bowels of the machine forever. ‘It’s easy’ I was told. ‘You’ll be up and running in no time.’ Running was an apt word but it was running away from the ‘thing’ and into the studio where I mostly know what I’m doing.

I had a rudimentary website made for me just after Christmas, but it was awful. My work looked terrible, and it was boring. It wasn’t how I had envisaged it at all. Also suggested I was an archive portfolio as well as recent work This has been a huge task as it goes back to the early 1970s! Most of the work was on slides and those needed scanning to put on the computer. It was the way we recorded images then.

 

It didn’t take me long to realise that if it was up to me, the website would remain on my to do list forever. Perhaps I made my most sensible decision to date, when I obtained the services of a young computer man technician, Jamie Brown. He patiently listens and makes my ideas come true. He puts up with my strong feelings on colour and fonts. He snaps texts to images with a smile, resizes images. Make me pop down buttons and other wonders. Yes, it is taking time but well worth it. I can’t praise him highly enough. Getting this right is top of my list. It has also proved an interesting exercise, allowing me to evaluate my artistic journey. It might even get finished for my Birthday! What a present that would be.