If you're reading this, I just want to say thanks. Either I told you about my new website, you're reading this because you care about me, or, you've just found me at some point far in the future, and you've been so entertained by my art that you've decided to go back and read through all my old blog posts.
Either way, I'm grateful, because I want to tell you about this website. It feels almost stupid to code a website in 2026, with social media being the inescapable dopamine casino that it's turned into, and AI web traffic surpassing human traffic recently.
This is a problem for me, because I've been working on this website for ... I don't know, the better part of 20 years? Yeah.
If that sounds a little bit disingenuous, please know that's on purpose — I didn't open index.html the first time and then labor away at it until it looked like it does today — but over the past 20 years, I have had close to a dozen false starts on my portfolio website, for one reason or another.
- I couldn't decide on a color scheme (haha i picked "grey.")
- I couldn't decide on a logo
- I was drunk (almost six years sober!)
- I didn't know enough PHP
- I was in college to learn PHP
- I graduated college and still didn't know enough PHP
- I was too busy with life
- I was scared of perceived and judged for my art
- I got bored of coding
- I hated the idea of nobody buying my art
... I mean, we're talking every reason in the book. And, I don't know, maybe you can relate? Maybe you also have a personal pet project that's fallen by the wayside for one reason or another?
That's why I've chosen the particular piece that I have for this post — in addition to the obvious "Springtime" metaphor of growth, and rebirth, it's also a piece that I started in 2008, and then let sit dormant for 15 or so years, until I found it on an old hard drive, and updated it to reflect my new skills, ambitions, tools, and everything else.
I thought it was done for over a decade, until I approached it from a better place. I don't know, it just seems like an apt comparison. Maybe it wasn't ready to be finished in 2008. Maybe I wasn't ready to finish it.
This website, though? Fuck me, am I ready to be finished with it. I've written THOUSANDS of lines of code to make it work. Spent hours over the past few months upgrading YET ANOTHER false start version from 2024 that you may have had the misfortune of seeing.
And it's almost done! It's ... honestly probably more than a little over-engineered, but if you know me, that's probably not a surprise (lol). All that's left at this point is integrating the back-end tools that I need to make it possible for you to buy prints and original works, and I'll have a 20 year old monkey off my back. And let me tell you, that's an incredible feeling. One that, if I'm being honest, I'm genuinely not too familiar with.
And what if nobody buys my art? Well, at least I'll have tried. If nothing else, this whole thing has been an exercise in getting out of my comfort zone. Well, that and caffeine consumption. But realistically, it's been an incredibly enlightening experience. And from that, what do I have to pass on to you, the reader?
BUY MY ART! (shit wait, that's not right, hold on)
What I've learned from this is that, I thought this was impossible for years. It's not — and "it's not too late to start" is trite as hell, but in this case, it's true.
Yeah, I've missed out on 20 years of connections, and sales, and admiration (or being loathed, or whatever), and all that is completely true, but I just wasn't ready to finish it. And now? Now I am ... and I would have never had the privilege of learning that about myself if I hadn't just given it one more chance.
If there's something in your life that deserves a second, third, fifteenth chance ... why not start again today?
