Author Archives: Ryan Markel

links for 2009-06-17

(Photo credit: Thermometer by flickr user slayer23.)

links for 2009-06-16

(Photo credit: My new netbook from flickr user yurukov.)

links for 2009-06-15

Fine Art on Downtown Streets

Each year, Belleville, Illinois plays host to Art on the Square, which is a rather unique gathering of artists from all over the country (and in some cases, the world). They descend on Belleville to set up in the downtown square in individual tents, proudly displaying their craft and offering fine art, photography, sculpture, jewelry, glasswork, and woodwork of all shapes and sizes. It’s really a fascinating sort of event. They block off about four blocks’ worth of street in the downtown area just to hold it, including the roundabout that’s right in the center of town.

This year was the second time we’d visited. There’s no way we can afford many of these pieces of art (some of them cost into the thousands of dollars), and I’m always nervous taking the kids for a walk around the square when just about everything around is breakable, but it’s always an enjoyable time. This year, the weather was nice and cool, the sun was shining, and as always the people were friendly. It’s a great thing to be able to engage the artist, to ask about their work, how and why they create it, and where they are from.

We plan on continuing to go each year. Someday we’ll take back a piece of art to adorn the walls of our home.

I’ve prepared a small flickr photoset with additional images of the event. If you’d like, check it out.

Let's Play Musical Themes

Tonight’s been a game of flipping from one theme to another for me. I have been using Carrington for a while here, but I grew bored with the base look of the thing and wanted something a little more unique.

I worked with one for a while—even edited some old posts in order to fit the theme—but discovered a few problems in the admin side of the theme and unfortunately had to abandon it.

What I landed on is something that interests me greatly. It’s originally designed for a photoblog. The big thing you will notice is that it doesn’t have a traditional front page like most blogs do; it instead has a series of images. Each post on the blog will now have an image uploaded that works with the theme of the post. I’m going to use a combination of images from my own photography (something I intend to continue working on) and Creative Commons-licensed works from flickr like the one that accompanies this post.

I will of course give credit where credit is due for any and all CC-licensed images.

In addition, I’ve taken some steps to simplify here. You’ll notice that the new theme doesn’t support a standard sidebar. I’m OK with this, as I normally find that sidebars tend to get overly cluttered and stick out like sore thumbs. The main page wouldn’t work with them anyway, and if you’re interested in my Delicious links or in my Twitter posts, I’m sure you’ll just find your way over to those services anyway.

I’m also taking a large chunk of posts beyond a certain date, permanently archiving them, and removing them from the site. The past is great, and I will always have a record of those posts and stories, but right now I want to focus more on the present and on what I have going on. Everyone’s entitled to a reset once in a while.

(Photo credit: “Musical Chairs” by flickr user David Maddison.)