rallying cry from the pulpit

Mood: hypnocritical
Listening to: Warren Zevon-Werewolves of London
Reading: Reversible Errors

Ok. I'm going to get all preachy now. Much of the time I let the ugly side of DA roll off my back, dismissing most of the bullshit I see with a roll of the eyes, a shake of the head and a yawn. Every so often though, it all just gets to be a bit too much for me, and I have to speak up.

Too many people around here are caught up with feeding their immature egos by slamming others, fretting over stats and the related, imagined “popularity” (I swear, sometimes I think I'm in some kind of high school time warp) so much that they lose track of what this DA thing is supposed to be about. It's supposed to be about the art, and it's supposed to be about community. Community doesn't mean trying to seem "cool" by loudly trashing everyone and everything in sight just because we can do so safely behind the relative anonymity of our computers. Community means supporting one another as artists and as human beings. C'mon, it ain't rocket surgery. Support artists! Support great artists. Support young artists. Support artists who might not have mature skills but show potential. We're artists, we can recognize potential, and it would be in everyone's best interests if we would act on this by offering encouragement and constructive advice whenever possible. Trust me, it's not that difficult. In basketball, it's called “make shots!”, which means producing at crunch time and doing what's necessary to get the job done. Here, we can make shots by not only displaying our own art, but by making the art world at large a better, more productive place that will continue to evolve, reinvent itself, and will say something about us to future generations through an enlightened viewpoint, rather than which wars we've won and who else we've managed to dominate. I invite you to join me in this. Let's do what we can to make deviantART a better place.
-------------
My mom's name is Gerry Douglas, and she does one thing and one thing only with a computer, that being Photoshop. She's the most brilliant, most talented person I've ever known, and whatever small artistic ability I might possess can be traced directly to her. I recently returned from a visit and I came back with a few things I wanted to put up where someone might see them. I was super impressed by this series of faces:
[link] [link]
[link] [link]
[link]
[link] [link]
cool birthday card she made for me:
[link]
-------------
member of:

-------------

I have quite a bit of GIMP art in my gallery at the GIMP User Group. [link]