So I keep planning to update the website. Not just update, but overhaul, change around, redesign, all that stuff. James has some program he likes, which would auto-generate the thumbnails and take care of all the links and so forth, which would be a helluva lot easier for me and mean that I actually keep the site current, so that’s something to hope for. (It’ll be a bit before we implement all this, mind you, but I’m hoping to at least start myself thinking about it.) Mostly, I find myself wondering what to do with all my old art–I have SO MUCH ART that keeping it all in the main gallery is sort of absurdly unwieldy, but if I take art down, people start sending me e-mails asking where their favorite painting is.

Simply adding gallery page after gallery page is one option, but the sidebar listing the galleries, even with collapsible bits, is gonna be measured in yards, the way I keep going. So would some kind of “Older Work” archive for stuff over, say, two or three years old work? My webpage is not meant as a portfolio site by any means so much as a fairly exhaustive archive for casual browsers (I have a lean ‘n mean web portfolio for art directors) and place where people can browse art for sale, so I don’t mind keeping it around, but making people slog through the entire history of my painting career every time they look at a gallery seems cruel. (My originals page works okay at the moment, I think, although it isn’t updated often enough. The print system is unwieldy as hell. If I’m lucky, James can figure out how to rig the shopping cart thing, which would be pure madness!)

I’m not one for lots of fancy graphical doodads, since I figure people think that’s cute once and then get pissed off by it–and NO FLASH WHATSOEVER. I know I need a mailing list. People keep asking for a mailing list.

The standard Ursula Rambling Commentary of Doom will stay. I realize that’s at least half the draw, possibly more. No worries there.

Am I missing anything? Do people have any other thoughts?