So I’m not going to pull a Steve Bush and give a complete history of CollectiveArts and TealArt right now (ask me sometime about Steve Bush, and I might just tell you), because I think it’s fairly likely that you know more than you probably ever wanted to know of these sites' back-story. But I do think I’ve finally come to a conclusion that may offer some interesting insight, and there may be a tangible change at last.
There is one speck of history that I don’t tend to tell people very much. We’ll call this story ‘the discovery of blogs:’ When Jason Dunn of PocketPCThoughts switched from Blogger to Greymatter, I discovered Noah Grey and Greymatter and a whole world of really great blogs. While I had seen blogger/blogspot stuff before, in the beginning at least, the people who took the time to use a program like Greymatter, generally had better quality work, but I digress. The possibilities that CMS’s like Greymatter and the blogging format inspired me and knew that I had to be a part of this whole movement (before it was a movement of course). But ever the individualist, I had to do something unique and different.
Thus the monster known as CollectiveArts was born. I really just wanted an awesome blog with a few really talented folks contributing and offering their unique perspectives. I dragged the CollectiveArts concept around countless times and the record really speaks for itself. At some point down the line, Lynda of DigitalWoe purchased the TealArt.com domain for a friend, but fatefully, those plans fell through, and she offered a two year registration of this quirky domain to anyone who wanted it. Ever the opportunist, I jumped on the offer and the monster that is this site was born. It’s taken us a long time to get on our feet technologically and personnel wise, but I think that now more than ever we really have that comfy awesome blog by a few really talented folks.
After almost two and a half years of trying to get this CollectiveArts project off the ground, we’ve finally got what I/we were looking for. The problem is, of course, that instead of an awesome site named CollectiveArts, we know it as TealArt. But the resounding question of: ‘what do we do with CollectiveArts?’ remained. Chris and I struggled with this one for a while, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s time to let go of CollectiveArts. It was a great experiment, and it paved the way for the development of this site, so I think it was really worth it, but I don’t think it’s worth clinging to the notion of CollectiveArts in light of what’s happened. So unless someone wants CollectiveArts.net, and makes an offer, we’re going to let it slip I think.
So we’ve arrived, finally, at a solution that works really well for our needs, and you know, it feels great to be here! Registration is due in November (or it’ll slip), so I think we’ll start moving our email accounts out of there now, and the domain is now pointing to TealArt. I’m thinking of registering a couple of other domains that I’ve meant to take on for a while, but those will go to a more static portfolio type of site I think, if I even make a site for them. But as for display of my writing online, TealArt is my home; and I like it this way.