Besides the generous publicity from media outlets, the blogosphere really helped broadcast Urban Alchemy’s opening and often gave insight into the exhibition and Matta-Clark’s work. Here are several blogs linked to relevant posts: Read the rest of this entry »

We’re excited to be a part of a new collaborative blog: Saint Louis Art Map.

This was started by a handful of non-profit visual arts organizations in St. Louis to be a resource for information and a place where discussion about this information can take place.  St. Louis might be a small arts city, but we’re lucky to have a diverse range institutions.  We’re hoping this blog will showcase this diversity and give you a glimpse into the inner workings of each.  We’ll not only feature behind-the-scenes posts from our curators, staff members, and visiting artists, but we’d also like to include third party reviews of exhibitions, lectures, etc. around town, and overall commentary on the arts in our city.  We hope this combination of first-party and third-party sources will give you more insight and from a wider range of perspectives and backgrounds.

This blog is still in it’s infancy, and we need your input.  What would you like to see covered?  Who are you interested in hearing from? Help us shine a light on what our city has to offer, as we shape this brand new collaboration.

Is opening Google Reader each morning as overwhelming to you as it is to me?  I feel like it’s almost impossible to stay current with all of the blogs I want to read (and if yours isn’t out of control, how do you do it?!  Teach me your ways!).  However, in between panic attacks and marking posts as “keep unread” for later, there are a few that I never miss.  One of my current favorites: Eyeteeth (also one of my favorite blog names).  Written by Paul Schmelzer (a former editor of the Walker Art Center’s blogs) his posts are always humorous, insightful, or both.

We’re also updating our sadly out-of-date blogroll over the next few days.  Do you have any must-reads we should include?  Add them in the comments! 

Day 2, Post-Election

This is my first post on 2buildings1blog. After a few weeks as the PFA web communications intern, I’m still getting used to e-journaling to unknown faces. Connecting to another world from a desk and metal folding chair is unbelievable, and how to be successful at it is still in question.

For a class this week, I was assigned to write a short summary of what makes a good blog, using “research” from the Internet. If you google the topic, here’s what a few sites suggest people want in their blogs: a distinctive voice, focused obsessions, use of paragraphs, weirdness, effort, controversy, links, frequent updates, intriguing titles, advice on being successful. And substantive content is sometimes nice.

Since webloging is a relatively new form of writing, it seems like the definition of what’s good is still up for grabs. What do you think makes a good blog? In particular, what qualities do you look for in an institution’s blog? What is the role of a blog, and what do you think web communications accomplishes in general?