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Transforming Online Places into Art Spaces
Karen Walrond, Carol Gilliott and Khadijah Ali-Coleman
Karen: I write and shoot a blog called chookaloonks.com It’s always personally gratifying for me to be a in a group of artists. I’m hoping and almost insisting that you get involved in the conversation as well. We jave Khadijah Ali-Coleman, a spoken word artist and an actress and singer based out of the DC area. And then a very talented artist named Carol Gillott, she has some cards she’s going to share.
Karen: There’s sort of this thing that artists are not techies. When did you decide I want to start incorporating blogging into social media.
Khadijah: I came into the whole world of blogging in 2003, when my daughter was born. I became one of those mommy bloggers. Once I became a mom, I began to do more behind-the-scenes production. My blog became a calling card for a lot of the events that I put on behind the scenes.
Carol: A friend dared me to start a blog. I had been collecting these stacks of watercolors on the shelf. As an artist you’re very isolated. I went on these other blogs that are Paris-related and pastry-related. And it just mushroomed. I’m on Blogger, I’m on flickr, I’m on Etsy, and I’m on Zazzle.
Karen: How many people here started blogging because you were a new parent. I was working at a Fortune 200 law firm and I just had this hobby on the side.
How do you create community on your sites?
Khadijah: I wanted to start an online space. At the same time my business partner came to me with the idea of putting on a music festival. We used it to promote the festival and at the same time I was blogging about the arts community. I’m a journalist as well. I was trying to do everything. People were logging on, trying to be in the know. I began posting opportunities and we had actresses, fiber artists – all kinds of people joining this community. People were specifically coming to find out information.
Karen you’re sort of the guru when it comes to marketing online
Carol: I find marketing really fun. When I came up with the name Paris Breakfast – that really got me off to a great start. I realized that blogging is about entertaining and people will tell you what they want to see just in their comments. I get a lot of direction. Sometimes I get really nasty emails, and sometimes they’re the best ones. It’s a give and take thing.
Karen: When you use social media, are you thinking of it as a form of self-expression, are you thinking this is how I reach my audience.
Maria: I started my blog when I was a new mom and I was freaking out. I have a dance company and I do social media. We do live streaming, we do entire discussions with our followers through Twitter parties. I have found that posting rehearsals online and taking questions is amazing.
Alex: the idea of spending much time on promoting myself is hard. I had a website and another person set it up for me. And he didn’t I started an art blog as a way to show what I’m working on. One thing I missed after art school was the critiques. I’m really good at promoting something else, but not at promoting myself. I’m not sure how to shape what I’m doing to get more feedback and I don’t want to turn my life over to marketing.
Karen: I started chookooloonks when my daughter was a baby. My daughter was adopted and my company would not allow maternity leave. Later, I decided that I didn’t want to make her a poster child for adoption. I’m really terrible at self-promotion myself, I switched entirely over to a photo blog. I have a life list, 100 things I want to do in my life.
When I quit practicing law, I decided that I really wanted a professional-looking blog, so I hired someone. For me, it’s making sure that all the information is there, and then just do what you do, do your art.
Khadijah: I’m a playwright, and four of the women that were in my play are professional singers and we’ve had conversations about this. The way that Liberated Muse gains any type of recognition is that we promote other people. When
