While we’re all fortunate to have the Internet as a medium of
communication and community-building, emerging artists particularly
benefit: They can now get serious (or casual) public feedback about
their work relatively easily, which was impossible in the bad old days
when a few lofty tenured critics were accorded semidivine powers.
Today, the tech-savvy Bay Area thrums with online activity, with a
variety of web sites furnishing calendar listings (ArtSlant), art
sociology and anthropology, plus pinky-cam pix (ArtBusiness), and
analysis at whatever degree of difficulty you want (Shotgun-Review,
Stretcher). The East Bay art scene benefits from a number of active,
ubiquitous blogger-artists, including Theo Konrad Auer, John Casey,
Narangkar Glover, Obi Kaufmann, and Derek Weisberg, all worth
following. Steven Barich’s Artopic, however, seems to strike the best
balance between reportage, analysis, and dialogue, with solid writing
from a number of contributors, plus links to other useful blogs and web
sites. No need to choose, of course. Remember Arneson’s “Smorgy Bob”
ceramic? All you can eat, 24/7, on demand.
.Best Art Blog
Artopic.org
