Links! Let’s bring blogrolls back!

quick sketch in my sketchbook

I’ve added a new blogroll to my sidebar on my website!

It’s full of links to my favorite people on the internet—artists, writers, thinkers and all around interesting humans—who have something real to say and share. I hope you’ll check them out and subscribe to some of them and follow their blogging shenanigans. And maybe share links to your favorite blogs with your friends too.

I also really hope that blogrolls make a comeback so I thought I’d help start the ball ‘rolling.’ Maybe I can convince other bloggers to bring back their blogrolls, too. You never know.

Why?

Because I am a raving blog fan

And I want more people to find the great stuff out there.

And a blogroll, if you don’t know, is simply a list of blogs on a blogger’s sidebar to help people find great stuff.

They used to be a big thing before mass social media. Bloggers linked to other blogs on their sidebar blogrolls and other bloggers linked back to them on theirs. The more links across the blogosphere, the more everyone could find each other.

It was a good idea and we should bring it back.

Have I convinced you yet to jump on over to my new blogroll to check out my favorite blogs?

You’ll find it on my sidebar.

And while you’re at it—I updated my gallery and my welcome statement. You’ll find those directly on my website too. I’d love to know what you think so drop me a line if you feel like it and let me know.

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P.S. In case you’re curious— my personal relationship with blogs

I first started reading blogs back around 2009-2010 (just a few years after they became mainstream social media). I followed people sharing DIY home projects because at the time I channeled practically all my creativity into DIY home projects. And besides, my favorite daytime show on HGTV, The Christopher Lowell Show, had sadly ended.

Anyone else watch that show? AH-MAZE-ing!

I also followed fashion blogs, career blogs, and then I found mixed media and art journaling blogs because, WHAT? I could do this?

Blog reading soon became a daily habit, and several of them literally changed my life. I don’t think I would have ever become an artist if so many generous artist bloggers hadn’t taught me about art making and, even more importantly, convinced me to listen to my creative voice. What a treasure trove!

And it wasn’t just art. I found so many people in different fields and parts of the world who shared their expertise and perspectives. Technology, economics, philosophy, science, spirit, business, life wisdom…my world expanded too.

And it does to this day. Every morning when I wake up I pull out my iPad, grab a cup of coffee and fire up my Feedly app —and every morning in my self-curated feed someone smart has something insightful, thought-provoking, inspiring, informative, funny and/or useful to share (so unlike most of what we find on social or mainstream media!)

At this point I might mention that now I don’t just read blog posts, I write them.

This only happened in the last couple of years. Before, I did try my own blog but I ran into walls. Nothing I wrote felt authentic or true. I thought I wanted an audience to share with—but yet I was afraid I was not enough and I hid.

In hindsight of course I can see that I was just starting out on my creative journey and I did not yet have a real sense of my own identity. I hadn’t yet become the artist and the person I knew myself to be on the inside. I wasn’t ready to blog.

Today, I can say I am an artist who is further along on that journey and hosting a blog feels much lighter. There’s a certain ease now in simply knowing that—just like making art—if there’s something I want to create and to share, I can.

And now maybe you will know that you can too.

P.S.S

People follow blogs either using an app called an RSS Reader, which brings all the blogs you want to follow in one place on your computer and/or devices (I use and highly recommend Feedly). Or some blogs offer the option like I do to subscribe by email or to e-newletters, which are also essentially blog posts delivered by email.

I’m here to help if you have more questions. Just hit that email icon in the top right corner of the blog (or reply to this post by email).