While kicking around the VCL, reading the current tempest in a teapot about altering the archive (in this case to de-nipplize, which is at least a nice change from the normal quality control argument) it occurred to me that I actually have opinions on how art archives are run. Actual opinions! How and why did that happen?
And then I realized that freelance artist that I be, I’ve gotten maybe ONE job from aggressive self-promotion (and I do mailings and the like, too)–virtually all of my work comes through people finding my art on the Net, on Elfwood or VCL or Yerf or DeviantART or wherever. So these guys–Ch’marr and Thomas and Dingo and all those associated admins and so forth, god love ’em, who do this job that I would never in ten million years want to do, are actually in large part responsible for my financial success, limited though it currently is. Presumably once I’m wildly successful (I can dream!) and I can send mailings to major publishers without getting immediately filed and forgotten, this may change somewhat, but at the moment, on-line art archives are a large part of what keeps the wolf from the door. So of course I have opinions about this–nothing develops an opinion half so rapidly as cold hard cash.
But I find it a little funny, all in all, because when attempting to keep silliness in perspective, I usually tell myself “It’s about talking animals, for god’s sake. Let’s not lose our tiny little minds.” Except that for probably more than a few of us, talking animal art has actual cash backing it, and this absurd, delightful, whimsical little genre shows up as an entry on our 1040’s.
Do I have a point? Other than re-iterating my heartfelt “THANK YOU!” to the people running all those art archives, not really. I think that maybe, even after a couple of years, I just still find it funny that I have a job where I can actually spend hours discussing with an employer the way a dragon’s wings are going to work, or how much gore can tastefully come from a bullet entry wound, or how a wolfman’s ankles should properly articulate–and that’s what I do. Every now and then the sheer bemusement of it all hits me, and ya know, ya gotta laugh.
