This page is for my friends who are not very internet-savvy and would appreciate some help navigating my website. I will introduce the basic ideas of posts, pages, categories & comments using the metaphor of an art museum.
Imagine I am a fabulously rich art collector and you are a friend, arriving at my home museum.
Posts: Weekly, delivery trucks back up to my loading dock, bringing art I have collected on my trips around the world. I open the shipping containers, examine the pieces in great excitement, and push them to the side of the receiving area for later consideration.
This regular input of new stuff is what this website software calls (weblog) “posts.” This is the hot new (perhaps ancient) stuff, eagerly received. The most recent “post” is at the top of the list, right where you see it first when you come to the website. Scrolling down, you see the next most recent post, etc.
Categories: The materials in the rooms just off the loading dock of my home museum are not grouped very carefully. I do try to keep “African Art” in one area and “European Expressionism” over in another. Still, when I am intrigued by the similarities between two acquisitions from very different cultural origins I may group them together, not as some sort of ultimate statement, but just to emphasize my temporary fascination with the similar and different aspects of the pieces.
This website software calls these groupings “categories,” and the categories which I have assigned to a particular post are listed at the bottom of each post, immediately after the phrase “Posted in.” You can click on any of the category names at the end of a post and see all my other posts to which I have assigned that category.
Pages: Then there are the more formal rooms of my home museum.
I have a room devoted to “American Primitives” and one devoted to “European Romantics” and one devoted to “Shamanic Art from a variety of cultures.” The equivalent on this website is called “Pages.” I am trying to arrange my pages as clearly as possible in a list down the right side of the screen. In the individual pages I make an attempt to present the various aspects of my vision as understandably as possible. Here you get a larger view of my over-all understanding of the pieces I am collecting, and how they seem to me to fit together.
The most interesting thing is that from time to time the flow of new material in the “posts” section, which I group into “categories,” forces me to rethink my organization in the “Pages” rooms. Perhaps I should move my works by Alex Grey over next to William Blake. You, my friend, your visits and your comments have a big effect on this most interesting aspect. But that’s for later. Now I am just showing you the broad layout before I turn you loose, to enjoy the material on your own.
To review:
“Pages” are my best effort to organize the various parts of my vision, showing interrelationships.
“Posts” are what you see as the main body of text when you come to the website, most recent on top. This is my current thinking, not necessarily of lasting significance, even for me.
“Categories” are my attempts to group the new “posts,” so that you can review my thinking by the themes that interest you, rather than wading through everything that has come up.
If you want to comment on a post, click on the words “Leave a comment” in the gray band at the bottom of the post you are interested in.
Type your comment in the box provided, and then enter your email address (which will be seen only by me) and a name you would like to use when you post comments on this site. Click the “post comment” button.
The website software notifies me of your comment. It does not post the comment until I have a chance to approve it, which might take a day. (If you comment a second time, after the first one has been approved, using the same name and email, your comment is visible immediately, I think.)
RSS Feeds will let you know “something has happened,” if you subscribe. You need a RSS reader, to do this, or some equivalent software. There are good free RSS readers, but I’m not prepared to explain how they work.
Gaia Voices 