As if on queue...

(A few posts ago)
Adobe Strives to Crack the Smart-Phone Market

"Smart phones are where the game is now," says Kevin Lynch, Adobe's chief technology officer. "Our chips are on the table. We've made our bets."

Even fine artists have to pay attention to technology.

Until Abode catches up I have the necessary flash components on my website wrapped in JavaScript that switches to an image if the "smart" phone can't show the flash.

Don't believe me?

Check my "contact" link with your smart phone: http://www.kickthefaucet.com/fine_artist_contact/ocd_art_artwork_form.html
Then check it on a computer and you will see the difference.

Fine art website redesign is complete!

And it feels good.

Major wins with the redesign:

• Cleaner, more intuitive, user friendly design


• From 2 pages to about 30 pages should help bring the old bounce rate down


• Looks great on the smart phones (old one didn't even show!)


• Much more search friendly, logical sitemap


• Quicker page loads; less wait, less frustration


• Easier to manage and keep up to date


• Actually figured out with the redesign that my server form was down since I switched hosts last month, so sorry to all the folks that contacted me with no response, not usual

All in all it was time for a total redesign, so it was well worth the many hours it took. The new redesign is here:
Fine art paintings by Dennis Ryan

Fine art friendly? — hold the phone

Fine art paintings on your smart phone, sans Flash

One of the main reasons I am spending the many hours redesigning my fine art website out of a total Flash base is that I'm noticing more and more web surfers surfing via their broadband smart phones. These broadband smart phones like the Storm, iPhone and Omnia (just to name a few) don't usually show Flash. In fact the Omnia, which I have and really like, can view Flash but only older Flash that is playable via a Flashlite player. If the website is totally wrapped in a newer version of Flash, then the phone virtually locks up on the site and the user has one choice: to exit.

So until these phones catch up with current Flash players (mainstream technology for motion on the web), my site will use it minimally at best. And it will only use it where the information, fine art or content is mirrored somewhere else on the site not in Flash.

Fine art website: redesign taking mucho time

Sitting here listening to WHAM "AT40 5/25/85 #01 - Wham-Everything She Wants" while restructuring/redesigning my website: kickthefaucet.com. Not one of my favorite Wham songs, but it did actually hit #1 in 1985. Seemingly, I can't get enough of 80s music though!

I'm redesigning the website out of flash. It will still have flash components to show the fine art paintings, but I know the flash is not as search friendly as pure HTML/CSS.

It is unbelievable how long this redesigning and restructuring of very similar content is taking! To be fair it is like a brand new website.

Anxiety Art — If a cast could heal the broken mind...

People who suffer from mental disorders, like uncontrollable anxiety, wish it was that easy. The pain IS as real as a broken arm to them, but there is no easy fix like a cast.

A good bit of the concepts that derive my fine art stem from stories of obsessive compulsive disorder sufferers. Fact is, many people don't even know what the acronym OCD stands for though. If they or someone they know experiences obsessive compulsive behavior they just chalk it up as being anxious about something.

There are differences between anxiety disorders and obsessive compulsive ones, but they can be subtle. Anxiety and OCD show up as separate ideas in my paintings and artwork.

I actually suggest that OCD is a subset of anxiety disorders:

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder
  GAD can manifest itself as persistent worry about events or activities and produce physical symptoms such as heart palpitations, muscle tension and difficulty sleeping.
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
  OCD is usually specific obsessions and compulsions. The obsessive thoughts are uncontrollable. And the compulsion is a repetitive behavior to relieve the stress caused by the obsessions.

GAD and OCD could actually mix in the sense that the anxiety can cause heart palpitations and then the OCD would obsess into thought patterns that drive the sufferer to the emergency room several times.

Any way you slice it, anxiety is very real to its sufferers. It is a disability.

Non-suffers can't comprehend the weight of the realness that anxiety can bare. Mostly this non-suffer incomprehension leads to a few facial frowns, with raised eyebrows as they subtly shake their heads in disappointment about the actions of the anxious ones. They see the sufferers as inconveniences in their daily routines... thorns in their sides... speed bumps in their roads to fruition.

This interaction of the sufferers and non-sufferers is unfortunate. In my fine art about anxiety I try to paint this dichotomy. The concept of complexity on one side of the human race and misunderstanding on the other.