Art by Zee

Those of you who’ve grown accustomed to keeping up with posts via Twitter can get updates from this blog by following my Twitter account: zeegrega

Dear Zynga:

You don’t need me to tell you how successful Farmville is. After all, you already know that it’s the most successful application on Facebook with over 82 million users and over 22 million fans. Farmville users represent more than a fifth of all Facebook users and (at least per The Guardian) one percent of the (real) world’s population. That’s huge.

So huge, in fact, that it can be hard to put a human face on it. Let me help by giving you one: my sixty-something year old mother is a woman who previously left all of her computing to her assistant until she retired, at which point she used her old, slow computer (on dial-up, no less) primarily to look up airfares. Until she discovered online casual gaming, at which point she promptly bought a shiny new computer with all the bells and whistles, signed up for Facebook and started adding apps.

She now calls me on a regular basis to remind me to harvest my crops.

A few years ago I had what seemed like a great idea at the time:  I would create an online portfolio for my artwork (primarily photographs and paintings).  After the initial burst of enthusiasm failed, I quickly gave up on updating the site and Art By Zee remained static and ignored for a very long time. 

In the meantime:  predating this website is my involvement as a contributing author to Seattle Metblogs (a/k/a Metroblogging Seattle – the name I use most often, frequently abbreviated as MBS), the Seattle branch of the international Metblogs empire.  On MBS I write about art and music and movies and government and anything else that I can possibly connect in some meaningful way to the general theme of Seattle, including a weekly “Weekend Film Agenda” post that highlights movies playing around town with an emphasis on our local independent theaters and film organizations.

One result of my many years of engagement with Metroblogging is that I’ve been added to a large number of media distribution lists and I get a lot of great story  ideas from my inbox.  Since the primary purpose of Metblogs is to be city specific, many of those great ideas don’t go anywhere beyond the borders of my inbox and/or brain.

Additionally, I have ideas of my own that I’d like to share with a larger audience that also don’t quite fit that blog – ruminations, reflections, rants and rambles.  I’d like to post more than mere capsule reviews of shows and films and books and whatever else I feel like posting without restriction.

For someone who thinks of herself as an intelligent woman, I sure can be slow on the uptake:  it took me far longer than it should have to work out the idea of converting my former portfolio site into a blog site.  Having finally made the connection, here I am.  Having long since become attached to the name “Art By Zee” I’m keeping it; while most of the art mentioned here is someone else’s, some of mine might show up from time to time.

The three primary themes of this blog are art, entertainment,  tech and life.  My interpretation of what those categories include might be different from yours  but here’s a short list of what you can expect from this blog:

• news,  reviews, and general commentary  about  art of all sorts, including exhibitions, galleries, theaters, plays, movies, books, etc.
• news, reviews, and general commentary about entertainment and the entertainment industry (which also includes plays, movies, and books as well as casual gaming, sports and anything else that could be categorized as entertainment)
• commentary about other blogs and blogging in general
• miscellaneous commentary about miscellaneous subjects that don’t fit the previously stated categories

A frequent–and frequently deserved–criticism of blogging is that much of it is simple regurgitation of someone else’s press releases.  I will post press releasese I find worth posting, but they will be labeled as such and I will endeavor to avoid using them extensively or in place of my own original material.

Because I rarely leave the US West Coast, most of my location specific posts will be about this region but I do get notice of interesting events that take place elsewhere and will share those I think worth sharing.

Having learned my lesson from the past, I will make no promises regarding either the frequency or quality updates to this blog but I suppose it’s only fair to mention that everyone who knows me knows I suffer from Can’t-Shut-Up-itis; should you choose to be my audience, I do promise to do my best to make it as pleasant experience as possible.