it’s time

And it’s been a long time coming. This website has been through so many lives, too many to count. Apart for my very first tiny showcase, and despite quite capable help, it’s never really been just what I imagined.

Argh, designers, impossible to work with. And do you know the worst? That designer sitting in the client’s chair, gulp. Objectivity, perspective, years of experience and a removed eye- right out the window… “What do you mean you can’t move that whatever-it-is over just this much?”

Being a creature of the world of paper, this virtual world is a difficult place to inhabit. Yet, it is the thing of our time. And lately the tools have evolved so that the shaping and moving and refining of these online destinations is no longer a black box that only the developer can unlock. Frustrating? Confusing? Well, yes. But newer platforms display across devices and integrate functionality in ways unimaginable a few short years ago.

So, the time has come. I have hunkered down this summer and rebuilt the artigiano site brick by brick using these new tools. It was a worthy endeavor. Although I have decided to turn the virtual page on some older content, my hope is that this tiny re-imagined world will live in new and creative ways. I have archived everything and I expect you will see remembrances of long ago appear from time to time. Perhaps just a fond look back, or in a context relevant to some current mood or discovery.

These are times of upheaval, of uncertainty, even fear… and the horizon line may seem a unwelcoming yet unavoidable destination. We are reminded to be in the moment, to remain positive. Not easy. My trip down memory lane as I archived 13 years of stories and comments from this virtual journal cited many wishes for better. For humanity and kindness to win the day. For hope. As I embark on a new path in this imagined world, certainty dictates that those intentions will remain, whether the reality of actualizing a fighting chance for kindness is a possibility or remains elusive.

I watch the sky in order to remain mindful of the scheme of this awesome universe. Perhaps a distraction. Or maybe an ever present reminder of lessons we have yet to learn, or to remember and to cast in a new light.

Not so long ago, late one night I looked out a peaky northern window from a tiny room high in a crooked house. That night in the sleepy New York sky, the aurora borealis silently danced across my vista. The night sky does not care that I saw. Yet there it was.

Welcome to my kingdom.