Art, Ebay and virtual communities

Having just begun to sell my artwork on Ebay and artbyus.com, I have had a massive dose of electronic communities in the past two weeks… I am now Web-lified. Every day I have to learn a new, complex process as I refine the face I put out to the world. It’s like playing a video game non-stop except that all those dollar figures are actually coming out of my bank account. Who needs SimCity? I’ve got SimSelling! It’s wild enough that part of my mind keeps flashing back to when there was no world wide web, and our only computer game was Zork (yes, that’s dating me…but it‘s only 20 years, folks!).

I now seem to be living in front of my laptop screen, plugged into this huge virtual community, reading advice, uploading photos, downloading programs -- and I suddenly realize my butt is killing me and I’ve been at it for five hours straight! Incredible that I can point and click to create the kind of polished full-color “flyer” that I used to spend three days pasting up with rubber cement; unbelievable that potentially millions of people could see it by tomorrow! Living at the speed of light, indeed…

Before this all gets to be completely taken for granted (too late, Cath!) I want to think about how it affects me to have almost unlimited choices, almost effortless ability, and completely unseen communities surrounding me daily. For one, it makes the dishes seem really boring.. but seriously, has anyone else noticed the sensation of living in two places at once? There’s a kind of “reality” that’s divorced from the body sitting in the easy chair; there’s a fast-paced sale-barter-cruise process that makes me feel like I’ve been driving around town (around the world?) all day, and when I realize I haven’t moved (most often because my knees don’t want to unbend), I’m slightly discombobulated. And writing back and forth to people who I will never meet, and trusting this vast infinitude of ones and zeros with my art, my career, my sanity (alright, that’s not much recently)… what a huge leap of faith! And how casual it all is! For some, that is.

My friends seem to be divided into those who are afraid even to look at my stuff on Ebay for fear of making a huge mistake, and those who have already pointed out the myriad flaws in my site, my listings, and have gotten so “pro” that I don’t even understand their acronyms. And the gap is widening… will this new “everywoman’s web” actually create a new sub class of “those who have never bought on Ebay”? Will artists start to split over “online sales” vs. “a gallery was good enough for my grandfather”… like writers once argued over computers/typewriters? Am I looking for trouble? Probably… It’s interesting, anyhow. And I’ll have more to say about it, I’m sure.