Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

As part my NaBloPoMo examination of art and blogging, I asked a few folks to consider some of the same questions I’m pondering. Today, we are chatting with Chelle Stein.

I “met” Chelle on Facebook via a group for bloggers. I had a terrible wordpress fail which I shared with the group. Chelle graciously responded, offering to help me figure it out. That’s one awesome element of the local blogging world. A few weeks later, I posted my first Artistic Q&A, inviting others in the group to get involved. Chelle responded and I am pleased to have the opportunity to get to know her a little better myself as well as share her story with you.

Chelle unknowingly hit a button with me – journaling. I knew in this project that I’d eventually come face to face with that term which has always made me cringe. So here comes another challenge.

Name: Chelle Stein

Your Blog: http://chellestein.com/blog/

Where Can People Find You On Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chellestein
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Chelle_Stein
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/chellestein/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+ChelleStein/posts


Are you an artist – FT, PT, hobby, etc – this is self-defined? If so, please describe your art. I am an artist! It took a long time to be able to say that. I think a lot of people think to be able to call themselves an artist you have to be making a living from it or displaying your work in galleries and shows. Some people define artist as that, but I don’t. I consider that a creative business. For me, if you create, you are an artist. Simple as that. You art – whatever type of art it may be – does not have to be your full-time profession to call yourself an artist or a creator. Not everyone may agree that I’m an artist, but I’m okay with that.

My favorite creative outlet is art journaling – that will always be my first love. You can write, draw, doodle, collage, or paint in a journal or old altered book. There are no rules. I do sometimes do pieces on canvas, but I love notebooks and journals, so it seems fitting for me to do that.

Are you more inclined to define blogging as an art form, a craft, both or something else entirely? Please explain. I am more inclined to say yes, blogging is an art form. Blogging encompasses so many different forms of art – writing, photography, videos, music/audio recordings…it’s kind of like an online multimedia scrapbook/diary of sorts.

It’s hard to grasp why it might be considered an art because it’s not tangible, it’s not something we can hang on the walls or hold in our hands, but to me it very much is a way of expressing your creativity and sharing your creative side with the world, even if you’re not blogging about creative things necessarily.

Do you blog about the arts? Please explain. I don’t blog about the industry, the latest trends, the latest events. So no, not really. I do blog about ways to be more creative and embrace art into your life, as well as some tips for online marketing for creative businesses, but that is about it.

Whatever your relationship to the arts (literature, music, visual arts, etc), how has that informed your blogging? I have always loved to write – so for me blogging came very naturally. As you dig deeper into blogging though you start getting into the visual side of things – needing artwork/photography for your posts, creating video tutorials which then need music, making sure your blog looks good and is easy to read, etc. Blogging is very much all-encompassing to me at least for different visual mediums, no matter what the blog topic may be.

Blogs are typically available to the public and open to engagement via comments, social media, etc. Would you consider this a form of public or community art? Last year I started a project called Journal52 (Journal52.com) which is free year long workshop in art journaling. I consider this a community project, because it has participants from all over the world and a very active Facebook community and just an absolutely amazing and inspirational Flickr gallery (https://www.flickr.com/groups/journal52/pool/) where people create and post art based on our prompts/blog posts each week.

To consider a project a public or community art, I think it needs to have engagement and participation. It doesn’t need to have a huge online audience, but it should have some level of group involvement doing something together. Blog memes are another good example for how I would think blogging could be a community art project.

Is there an artistic pursuit you’ve always wanted to explore? I’ve spent the last two years really exploring working with different mediums and creating…I think for me now it is just a matter of making it a regular practice and working on improving. I hope to keep building new skills and techniques to try to incorporate in my art. I am always exploring and learning.