Did a painting today – I have not recovered fully from a long, intense week in San Francisco – but I did not want to leave my painting behind.  Having said that – I also did not feel up to doing two studies today and settled for this nude painting – below:

 

I’m hoping the Paris Trip I’ll be taking in a few weeks will help me recharge my energies and give me some perspective on the work I’ve done over the last year.  For one thing – I’d like to see what other artists do with the same motifs. 

Not even certain I’ll paint much on this trip – not enough time.   I am not going as much, this time, to paint, as to fulfill a dream to visit Paul Cezanne’s studio and hang out in Paris with other artists. 

I went to Paris in 1987, myself; it was kinda tough to take in Paris as I did not speak French and few people wanted to talk to me – mostly Americans.  I think, this time, it will be different.    Also, on my first trip, I never made it further out of the city than Versailles.

Getting back to my nude study today, I was able to stay with oil pastels and not stray off to chalk or wax pastels – I am happy I did not mix it all up – because I’m getting tired of losing control as add chalk pastels over Oil Pastels.

Ok, this is really about my web analytics work but….to me they’re both connected – and I used the referenece to Cezanne midway (at ~ 18:25 minutes into the podcast) - something about “mountain is just the mountain…but it takes the mind of an Artist to make it Mont Sainte-Victoire “.  

Interview with Marshall Sponder, IBM and Kelly Makimaa, WAA on February 19, 2007

MP3 File

The official version will be published on the Web Analytics Association (WAA) website in a couple of days, along with a transcript.  It’s a long podcast – but makes few demands on your browser or our servers as it’s all streamed from Hipcast.com.

I found the best sound settings for my podcast, at least, on my laptop are this (see below):

However, if your listening to the podcast on a MAC, I’m not sure what the settings would be as I don’t have a MAC.

One thing artists can learn from this podcast is what it might take to measure Rich Media (Flash) events.  Many Art Galleries and Artists tend to use Flash quite liberally – thinking that a more Flashy site conveys information and their work much better.

That might be true, but from an tracking standpoint, most Flash and Ajax applications are not visible to your tracking platforms without a bit of extra work – more than most sites are willing or able to put into place at this time.  As Websites become more interactive, more Flash and Ajax oriented – it’s getting much harder to understand how your visitors are engaging with your website.  I think that’s definitely an issue with Sacchi’s My Gallery web site that looks to be entirely Flash based.  But many New York Art Galleries have the same problems.

So for those of you who want to track those things – my podcast to the Web Analytics Association is of value to you as well.

Enjoy – and I’ll provide the link to the WAA site along with the transcript when it becomes available.