11,000 views, a slow and steady creep of new art, a play that just opened, and lots more down the pipe. It has been a good time for my creative mind, whether or not the quality of the art meets the exacting standards of this place or blah blah blah.

I've also found a lot of interesting art lately, and very talented people with very few followers or views. It does make me sad that, as in the "real world," there are tens of thousands of great artists on this site that are unseen, unappreciated, etc. We all tend to gravitate towards what's popular, the "professionals" on this site, and miss the bevy of talent scattered throughout the seriously awful, abysmal dreck that makes up the majority of this site's submissions.

The blessing and curse of places like this is that any and everyone can share. The exceptional, as always, tends to rise to the top. The unmitigated disasters, the childish nonsense and utterly plebeian, sinks into obscurity. The problem is that the internet gives us the idea that because we CAN do something, we SHOULD do something, and the glut of awful, uninspired, insipid junk overwhelms those who fit in the middle--the talented but unpolished, the ambitious but struggling artists who have potential (and, in many cases, fulfill that potential deftly) get shoved down with the rest because it's simply too much work to sift through and find quality material.

So I've taken to that very task--pages and pages of mediocre-at-best art, click click click, looking for those little jewels buried within. Hopefully some of the people who take the time to read this will look at my "Faves" gallery and have a gander at some of these unknowns. Look through their work, comment on their art, and help them become better, more prominent, more appreciated, and more inclined to produce high-quality work.

They, and I, will love you for it.