Monday, April 16, 2012

Quandry




quan·da·ry/ˈkwänd(ə)rē/

Noun:
  1. Perplexity or uncertainty over what to do in a difficult situation: "Tracey is in a quandary".
  2. A difficult situation; a practical dilemma.



I never use this word, but it came to mind last night as I thought about this blog post. I have a major pain in the ass dilemma with my blog. Picasa has reached capacity and they now want me to pay for more storage, No.... I am not going to pay Picasa to store my images. So, I have spent hours going through my picasa albums, deleting duplicate images and not so great images to make some more space. That, of course, opened another can of worms on my blog, leaving me with that black box and exclamation point on many of my posts. First I had tried deleting these images from my blog which did not delete them from picasa, so that was a waste of time, and this whole process is taking way more time than I am willing to invest. So, this has me thinking, do I need to start a new blog? I shudder at the thought of this. But I am also thinking that maybe I would like a new blog, a fresh start, something different, and I would like to put a shop on my blog. I'm just starting to think about this, but I am mostly annoyed with this photo thing right now. It's all my fault. Gerry kept telling me to change my file size to 72dpi, but I am lazy and didn't bother, so now I have way more to deal with than I want to. Some times it does pay to listen to Mr. photo, I just have that stubborn blood of my mom, grrrr....
And there is second quandry too. My very great friend and mentor Barbara, wants me to do a ^6 redux firing with her in May. I want to do this... mostly, she has beautiful shinos that did great in our first effort and I like firing with her, I love her kiln and I love shinos.  But, it has my mind split into two personalities which doesn't suit me well. I am in a groove with the house thing and have two shows and several galleries to get work made for. I like my terra sig, we know each other well and we are happy together. I have no idea what I want to make for this ^6 redux, do I get back on the wheel and make bowls, do I try some houses with shinos...maybe... do I hand build some bottles, do I throw some vases. I have no dang idea what I want to do, there is no inspiration there, and I have to get something made soon. My hope is to take one day and just get some things made, and I have the days, just don't know what to make.....

And there is yet a third quandry! I got an email from Lark and Key that the show I am in for June will be called Storytellers. I LOVE this! But now I want to make some new pieces to go with this title, which requires some exploration of new shapes and ideas, and I have that ^6 to think about.....

So, I am in a quandry this week. What I have decided to do is to roll out some slabs and just see where it takes me. I also got an email from a good blogger friend that she has some treasure for me! Oh boy!! Maybe that will be just the inspiration I need. And of course when all of you creative and wonderful people read this you are going to leave me all sorts of ideas and suggestions, now aren't you!?!?!?!
pleeeezzzzz......

1. what to do about Picasa
2. should I start a new blog
3. what do I make for a ^6 shino that will relate to my houses
4. what sorts of stories do I want to tell with my houses

these are my posers for the week :)

22 comments:

Michèle Hastings said...

I hit the wall with blogger photos this spring too. i decided that for now i will only post small size photos since right now I don't want to shell out anymore money... I do have another option, Jeff's website, which hosts gypsy potters as well can host my blogger photos should i decide to post something larger. i just have to figure out how to do it! personally i was scared to start a new blog... afraid i would lose some readers!
as for the ^6 reduction... it sounds to me like you don't really want to do it. maybe the timing isn't right and you will get another opportunity later.
...i will have to think a bit about the house/storytelling.

Tracey Broome said...

I do and I don't want to do the ^6, Michele. I want to do it because it will be fun to experiment with Barbara and I like her company. It's just going off in a direction I am not pointed in that is the stumbling block for me. I don't really want to make functional work right now and I'm trying to figure out what else these shino glazes might be nice for.. as far as the blog, I have seen others make the transition and keep their readers, you just have to make sure they get the message when you move!

klineola said...

That's crazy! (the storage thing) after 1400 posts and thousands of images, I'm only using 0.7% (point7%)! Maybe there is a glitch somewhere in my acct.

But you can get 20GB of storage for 5 bucks/year. This is pretty cheap and seems worth the continuity with your current blog.

klineola said...

Oh, also, storage limits include anything on gmail, picassa and google docs. You might want to look at those areas for really big files that you might want to trash.

Dennis Allen said...

Quandry, isn't that where they mine limestone? No that's quarry, no that's like the prey you are hunting. Damn, now you've got me all befuddled.Can you batch resize on Picassa? I would just go ahead and delete the old stuff from Picassa even if it does make some old blogs go black. You still have the originals on your hard drive don't you?
I would be tempted to do a couple of shino homes, maybe with an iron wash under the glaze on the roof areas or for accents but you can't split your focus too much or you might get lost in the quandry.Just treat it as a weekend off.

Tracey Broome said...

Hey Michael, are your images 72dpi? Mine are like 300 so it's totally my fault for being lazy. I might try to resize in picassa, that's an idea.... and 5 bucks is pretty cheap, I thought it would be more, maybe I'll just suck it up and buy more storage, seems the easiest path right now, thanks!
Dennis, I am thinking houses would be interesting with shinos. I really should get back on the wheel though, it's been way too long!

Anna M. Branner said...

Hm. I just put all my pictures directly from my computer to my blog. Am I missing something here?

yolande clark said...

Quandries! Unless I am posting from my ipad, I also just pull photos from my computer to the blog...Am i missing something too?

I have also thought lots about moving from blogger to wordpress. But after researching the pros and cons, it seems that there are some advantages to sticking with blogger: readership, definitely (although you're right about just letting everyone know--we would all move with you!). But I have also read some articles that suggest that blogger might be slightly better optimized because it's owned by google...yikes. The pros, of course, include the fact that blogger pages can sometimes look a little dated, or "bloggery"--I don't think yours does, Tracey, but mine certainly does. I tried to do a redesign, but I'm pretty hopeless, and kind of gave up halfway through...and I don't really like the look of my current site...oh well. !

I think being a woodfirer has helped me almost completely get over the sense of being artistically blocked, or of having little inspiration. Almost always, Lee and I are working with crazy show deadlines, and because woodfiring requires so much time doing things that aren't necessarily directly making (splitting wood, building kilns, packing kilns etc.), by the time we realize we only have 2 weeks to make stuff before a firing, there is absolutely no time whatsoever to deliberate about what will be made...we just dive into the studio and stay there till 3am, then do it again the next day. This isn't exactly ideal, but somehow everything gets pulled together...eep! (So I guess, my two cents are: say yes! Commit! Then figure out the how later!)

I also find that if I've been away from the wheel for a while, it takes me a couple of days of making complete garbage and feeling like an idiot before I start actually making work I like. The key is to keep at it!

I also think shino houses would be gorgeous!

(oh gosh, sorry for rambling on so much--grade 9 typing was the only useful class in highschool, and as a result I am an excellent and superfast typist! oh dear...)

cookingwithgas said...

semms you have some good options here- I know folks would follow you in whatever you decide to do- there are many bloggers who are on their 2 or 3rd blog and many have just gone with them. I would follow,you can not get rid of me that easy!
Cone 6 - can't tell you.
But lately I tried to think of what is really part of what I want to do and is a distraction from what I want. I am holding firm with no's these days.
And those no's have been helpful.
No's with no guilt.
Later!
M

Judi Tavill said...

I am just hoping "THEY" aren't gonna come get ME next and tell me I have to pay $...

Anonymous said...

hey tracey, well there's a lot of dilemmas and quandaries and launderies there. can't help you with the ^6 except to say do the thing you want that's you'll enjoy doing the most. the blog thing has me worried. i'm not close but really what other choice is there except to start another one. it'd probably be a hassle during the transition getting everyone to know the new address but it probably wouldn't take that long.

Anonymous said...

oh, my! you are spinning with questions! a new blog might be fun & if you leave an announcement & link at the top of this one, we'd all be able to follow easily. & it would be fun to see a shop.
as for storytelling, usually the ones we tell best are our own.
good luck w/it all.

Tracey Broome said...

Hey you gys, thanks for all the input. I didn't open this picassa site, blogger did it for me. I may be wrong, many times I am, but I think blogger is automatically storing images in picassa. I didn't even know I had a picassa album site until one day I found it by accident while searching for something on google. It's also tied in to my gmail. There are thousands of images there. Anything that I uploaded to my blog, even if I later deleted it or if it was just a draft, it's there. It is a pain in the ass to use, very slow and tedious, and I don't like it!
I do think some shino houses might be nice and yes to saying no when you need to, I have that one figured out!!
Yolande, my mom taught me to type before I started school, hence my long blog posts too :)
Judi "they" are watching you!!

Tracey Broome said...

For those of you that left questions about photo storage here is some info. You can also do a quick google and find out how to use other storage sources besides picassa, ie: flickr, photobucket, etc. Apparently there are some bloggers out there that didn't know they had a picassa account. I found out by accident one day while searching the web for something. I clicked on one of my images and it took me to my picassa album where there were thousands of photos, who knew! I also didn't know it would fill up sooo fast! There is an offer to download picassa to your computer as a photo management source, don't bother, it sucks, especially if you have used iphoto or photo mechanic, it's like a dinosaur!
I should have listened to Gerry and resized my images.....
Here is the 411:


Those who are blogging on BlogSpot platform, must be aware that there images are hosted on Picasa. (Free image uploading service from Google). Though picasa used to have maximum limit of 1GB, which means after 1GB you need to buy more storage to upload images, videos or you can use different profile to publish posts to upload images.
Now here is a good news from Google photo blog:
“In the past, each image and video you uploaded counted toward your free 1GB. Now, uploaded images that are 800 pixels or smaller and videos that are 15 minutes or less in length no longer count against your free storage limit. This means you can upload and store unlimited photos and videos at the above sizes — for free!”
This means now if upload images for your Blog Post, and if it’s usually less than 800Pixels, you will be using unlimited storage. As such images will not be counted on your 1G storage limit. This is useful for those bloggers who have been blogging on BlogSpot for some time and they are almost out of storage. Though I’m not sure, if this new update also applies for previously uploaded images or not.

ang design said...

you may just find if you empty your online mail account, plus the spam bin, plus the trash itself you'll have heaps of storage back... I did that last year and now im back to 3% and trying to keep up with the above mentioned clean out...its easier that way :)) you can store emails you need just not all of them :))

and stick in the vein your in trace, the houses/barns are def developing nicely and a weeks distraction into throwing and a lil c6 can't hurt that process..

and yeh 72dpi is easy to do a group export from iphoto for web just get in the habit chickie!!

Tracey Broome said...

Hey Ang, I keep my email pretty cleaned out, it's def the size of my photos, just should have been more diligent with it :). Thanks xo

Amy said...

Gosh, guess I gotta look into this photo picasa stuff. I'm confident you'll figure out what's best for you, Tracey. All the best!

Rosa said...

Can you not just move over to flickr and start uploading to your blog from there? The cost is relatively minimal (around $48 for 2 yrs for my account) and that's with unlimited storage (20MB/photo) and unlimited bandwidth. (They also have free accounts that limit you to, I think 300 uploads/mo.)

Yes, I sound like a flickr ad, but I've been very happy with them!

Michèle Hastings said...

my account has reached capacity so I only upload photos that are within the free size. Flickr also has limits on free storage and I am close to reaching that too!
As I mentioned before... anyone with a website, if they have a large hosting plan, can use that for blog photo hosting. If you are already paying for it why by more?
... shino barns would be cool. you could sprinkle a little wood ash for variations.

Lori Buff said...

I'd resize the images on picasa, for every image that you change from 300 to 72 you get space for more than 2 more images you can upload, so resize a few images a week and start listening to Gerry and upload new images at 72.
As for the ^6, don't do anything that you don't want to do. If the muse isn't talking, don't force it. If you have some houses that you'd like to try in that firing that makes the most sense. Nobody says you have to work on the wheel, EVER. If you don't feel it, don't do it.

Tracey Broome said...

Thanks all of you for your great feedback and suggestions. Thanks for the emails also from those of you that don't blog!!! I really appreciate hearing what everyone has to say!!!!
xo

gz said...

I suppose this is why Gary Rith is on his "third pottery blog"...no problem, just link from one to the next and off you go.

Flickr's limit is 200, then it is $25 p a for a pro account