As I was picking through my RSS feeds to see what choice nuggets I could snag for the site, I started thinking about my daily ritual for finding cool stuff to showcase here. I’m a tad ritualistic with it, so I figured I’d share. I’m not sure this is something you want to hear, whether it’s a good idea or not, but it came to me in a moment of inspiration, so you’re going to suffer through it with me.
• I’m usually woken up by the 2-year old around 6:15 am. I hardly need an alarm clock during the week, he’s so accurate. I step out of bed, slowly, snatch the little monkey from the crib, follow him as he trots into the kitchen and I fumble my way into roughly 2 full cups of coffee. Set up some Yo Gabba Gabba and a cup of cow juice for the munchkin, and I plunk myself down in front of the computer.
• Overnight, I’ve amassed around 30 to 50 emails, 99% of which end up directly in the trash. Fish through the Twitter and Pinterest follow notes, “are any of them artists? No, moving on”. Occasionally I will find an artist this way, but with a very low success rate. I also get notes from various local galleries, most of the artists being painters and not working on paper, so I skip over unless the show looks particularly interesting. Maybe I’ll attend (probably not).
• Facebook comes next, but usually just to satisfy some need to see who replied to my posts. Then over to Etsy for a quick bit. Check the front page and my activity feed for any nuggets. I’ll almost always find something, and if I do I either leave that artist’s page open for later, or email the link to myself.
• During all of this, imagine having to stop about every 5 minutes to make sure the little guy isn’t trying to rotisserie the dog, or spider-monkeying the curtain rods. Sometimes he comes over just to give a hug, for which there is always time, but it slows the momentum a bit.
• I usually get a few more emails, typically from 20×200, Mammoth, 1xRun, Fab and the like. If I find something cool here, I’ll bounce those up really quick to have something in the chamber in case I come up goose eggs otherwise.
• Once at the office, I keep my RSS feed reader open and finger through some of the latest posts. Lately, I haven’t been able to get to these, so I’m just now getting them down to somewhere just below 1000+ posts to read. Thorough is not even an option, but I do yield some cool finds this way. Even if I do snag an artist from another site, I try to break it up a bit, do it slightly different so I don’t completely scavenge their post, but it’s necessary on occasion. Credit is always given. I’m the king of shout outs like that.
• There’s a whole lot of social media going on about now. I’m all up in Facebook’s face and Twitter is my little bitch if only for a moment or two. Most of the time, I can find at least one more thing to share, but it all depends on the work load. I’m fortunate that my job allows a certain amount of freedom, but being a magazine, some weeks are pedal to the metal, do not look back.
• I’m usually home by 5:30, but my attention is once again monopolized by the 36″ human. Play cars, play legos, wrestle, eat, play cars some more; then Mommy takes over. Back to the RSS feed and Etsy, all day.
• Bedtime for Bonzo, shower for daddy, then I focus on writing longer posts, kinda like this one. These are not always successful and sometimes carry over a couple days … or weeks.
• If my wife is watching a show, sometimes I’ll take some time to chill with her. She hits the sack before me usually and I’m back on the computer or if I’m feeling really frisky, working on a new art piece. It’s a crazy thought, I know.
• I try to make myself go to bed before Midnight, but again, not always successful. I also try to avoid falling asleep on my keyboard because who wants QWERTY stamped across their cheek in reverse?
• Bedtime for Daddy.
SCREECH! Oh, an epiphany. I gotta write this down before I forget it. Where’s my Moleskine?
• Ok, now bedtime.
