Technology: tool or trap
Taking a digital image of a painting changes the dimensions, the surface, and my relationship with it. Sometimes I see technology as a positive thing, a tool for viewing something in a different way (like looking at your painting in a mirror or turning it upside-down. It is also an affective documenting tool to take images of your work and refer to the changes that you have made. Because it is an interesting way to re-see a paintings structure, I have to be careful not to view my work in this form more than I observed it physically. There is a clear change from painted picture to digital image but it is attractive, in some ways, even seductive. It is validating to see your work in this way. If it is capable of being seen in such a final, viewable way it seems somehow stronger.

Having a website changes the work for me, even beyond this digital perspective. While in the studio the paintings are a process; on the internet the works are final products, things I produce. Considering the work to be a product makes it stale and contrived. I don’t get to experience the struggle of the making when I am so preoccupied with the idea of people viewing it at its end. Paintings have no end; they are a means to learning the next step. They mark points of confusion, clarity, discovery and dead ends. Websites are neat and tidy; they package the work to make it accessible. Of course there are positive aspects of the work being accessible but it should never interfere with the artmaking. As an artist I need to be present with my ideas and the work. In the end the internet is a tool for artists to resee their work and also to let others have access to it. The main concern for me is to maintain integrity in my work so that it does not become something other than my work. It cannot become a product.