blogging

With this post I thee wed. I mean with this post I am entering a competition, somehow I have managed to get myself onto the kidspot social top 50 bloggers list. If I manage to claw my way to the top of the list I can win a trip to New York later on this year and I wouldn’t mind having a bit of a look at New York.

To kick off the blogger challenges, we would like you to write a post before 13 April titled:  ‘Kidspot Ford Territory Top 50: Feel the difference’ about your journey into blogging and what sets you apart from other bloggers. We invite you to put a button on this post to enable your audience to vote for you in the Top 50.

My journey into blogging began on a dark and stormy night when we were rudely woken up by furious banging on the back door. “The Spouse”  opened the door wearing only his jocks and a grim expression and you could tell that he was not impressed at all, by the wizened old man who was thumping on the door with his staff. “You have to let me in’” muttered the old man, “My need is dire and our time is short…”

In 2006 I had a sticker on the inside of my fridge door that read: I drink to make other people more interesting. When visitors would see that sticker they would smile at the joke they thought they were sharing with me but in fact that sticker was telling my truth.

I had been an outsider in my community for a long time, my children were picked on at school because they lived in a shed, their mother was a feral, a fucking greenie, a tree hugging hippy, their father was a dole bludger, we ate roadkill, had nits, had wild drug parties, you name it, they said we did it. I think my worst crimes amongst the local women was the fact that I collected cobwebs and neither dusted nor gossiped.

In 2007 my daughter talked me into starting a blog and Frog Ponds Rock was born. I tapped out a few words and received some comments. I took some photos with a hand-me-down point and shoot my mother had given me and I received just enough compliments to keep me going. My world expanded, my confidence with the camera grew and my loneliness receded. I faffed about on the internet, joining in with memes and making friends.

I didn’t realise how lonely I had been until I wasn’t lonely anymore. The isolation that had seemed such a huge barrier vanished, as I was connecting with like minded women and men all over the world. I could talk about politics and my concern for the state of the environment, without getting into an argument. I knew that if I jumped onto a plane to Europe or the United States, I had friends there and that knowledge was very comforting. My world had shrunk.

Whilst I was making friends all over the world my husband’s disapproval grew. The Spouse really, really, disliked me being on the computer and he worried that you, my dear internets were going to steal my identity, lift my credit card from the back pocket of my laptop or shock horror, you were going to entice me into kinky cyber-sex. I had to steal time to blog, or keep my ears peeled for his footsteps so that I could jump up from the computer and pretend I was doing something productive, like housework.

At the same time as my husband was worrying about identity theft, I was studying ceramics and struggling with my own identity. During a group discussion in one of my classes I decided that I really was an artist, not a student and so I started to call myself a ceramic artist on my blog.

You know if you start to tell people that you are an artist, they actually believe you.

This is where my blog differs from a lot of the blogs in this list. I am not a stay at home mum writing to save my sanity and I am also not a work at home mum trying to earn a living from blogging.

I am an Artist and this blog in 2012 is an extension of my visual diary. As a visual artist I do my thinking in public. I am comfortable with that. A nest of ceramic eggs in a public space is the realisation of a series of thoughts, as well as an invitation to you, the public, to join in the discourse; to participate in the public thought processes with me.

A conversation that starts here on the blog as nothing more than a wisp of an idea, often coalesces into something much more tangible than an abstract concept. The simple processes of examining my ideas, combined with feedback from you, is an invaluable tool.

I use this blog to de-clutter my mind. I take ideas out and examine them publicly and see what happens.

I also use this blog to poke at old wounds and see if they still hurt.

Early in 2010 my blog was nominated for Best Australian Blog in the bloggies and within the internet this was a big deal. When I showed my husband the nomination he was totally chuffed. I overheard him telling his mates that his missus blog is the best in Australia. The bloggies nomination removed any perception that my husband might have had that I was a total and complete nutter for writing on the internet.

He still knows that I am just your ordinary every day nutter.

Because of the 2010 bloggies nomination, I stopped having to blog in secret. I structure my time so that I write in the mornings and my blog has become an integral part of who I am. My husband is still deeply suspicious of all things computery but not as suspicious as he would have been if there really was an old man banging on the back door in the middle of a storm.

Today I am sitting here trying to write about my journey into blogging so that I can gather up enough votes to have a chance to jet off to Blogher in New York. I hope that this blog post has given you an idea about part of my journey and I also know that some of you reading this have been here since the beginning.

Thank you for reading and thank you for giving so much of yourselves to me over the years.

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