My Website Relaunch
14 years! That’s how old my website was. That’s six years older than my oldest child. And it looked it!
It was clunky and tired and clearly needed upgrading.
But I was reluctant to hire a web developer this time. The frustration (for them and me), of the back and forth discussions, descriptions, pricing, proof reading, display and image uploading with every new piece would see about a week go by before the public knew what I had available. I didn’t know any web coding, so I was utterly reliant upon them, and it just wasn’t efficient.
Enter the modern era of website development, where any average Joe (that’s me) can create and maintain (in real time no less!), their own websites. What?! Really?! -Apparently so.
I began to tackle what I thought would be, for me at least, untackleable (Not a real word I know, but it works here). Armed with only an overwhelming desire to maintain my own website, I scoured the web for ‘how to’ info. And it became very clear, that yes indeed it was possible to design my own website by myself (oh, and also build a nuclear fallout shelter and fly a plane! God bless YouTube!). So I hunkered down and pounded out this new website that you are now kindly visiting.
Was it easy? -No. Was it frustrating? -Yes. Was it worth it? -Hell yes!
Once I decided on a theme, it really only required time to personalize and customize it to my needs. Predictably, the generic template wasn’t enough for me. So I set about designing a few templates of my own, and as much as I resisted I actually dabbled in a little CSS coding (that’s short for: <h6> endless frustration with alpha/numeric hell </h6>). Surprisingly, the whole experience was actually a fun one. It allowed me to play with a different creative medium which is always exciting. The outcome is a site that I have total creative control over, can update in real time, anytime, and more importantly, have fun with while displaying any of my new artworks! The sense of relief to have this freedom after all these years believing it would forever be beyond my reach is indescribable.
So, what am I trying to say?
If you are thinking of doing a website or blog, do it! WordPress makes it very easy and attainable. I am far from computer literate and I managed, so it is definitely doable for you.
But mostly I’m saying: ‘ Welcome to my relaunched website!’
Poke around. Check out my artwork. Send me feedback if you like. I’d love to hear from you. I am learning how to Blog now and will be posting on a regular basis with topics to do with art, artists or whatever. So please drop in every now and then. I’d love for you to be part of this new website’s success.
Thanks,
Jim (a Happy Camper)
