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September
1, 2008
It's
been a long time and a lot of things have happened to me. Unfortunately,
not a lot of it has been good. A few great things have happened;
I have a great relationship with a woman I love and we're coming
up on three years together. In that time though, I've been through
a layoff and a move plus the discovery that I have heart disease.
A little over a year ago, I had a heart attack. It was a small one,
probably one of the tiniest ever recorded, at least I'd like to
think so anyway. Many people have told me it was sort of a blessing
in that I escaped the event with really no heart damage and no serious
repercussions. In fact, my girlfriend said it was a good thing in
some ways, since I was able to start changing my habits before something
very serious and life-threatening happened. I guess I would rather
have skipped having the heart attack altogether but I see her point.
So exercise and diet have been the focus of many of my energies.
I've dropped about 35 pounds and have been exercising regularly;
hopefully I can stay on the right path and avoid some more serious
heart problems down the road. With all that in mind, this site has
unfortunately taken the back seat to just about everything in my
life.
That's
not to say I haven't been playing with things behind the scenes.
For over a year I've been playing with various designs and layouts
to this site in the hopes of coming out with something new and exciting.
Unfortunately, every time I tried to come up with a new look and
feel for this website, I came back to the same silver and green
look. Rather than fight it, I decided to just go with the flow and
clean up everything that's still been nagging me about the site
design. So the overall look and layout has remained unchanged except
for a few small refinements here and there. The main difference
now is that I have expelled the popups for the artwork. I watched
people use the website and to my shock, many people still don't
realize that hyperlinks only require one click to open rather than
two. I guess Windows has conditioned everyone to think that everything
has to be double clicked. Now artwork thumbnails lead directly to
another page that opens in the same window. From there you can zoom
in or out on the image and pick the size you like the most.
I've
also reorganized the layout of all the pages on www.mattwolf.net
and created a new section called Archive.
Older pieces that I have taken down over the years have been given
a home in Archive so that we can all go
back and see some of the (embarrassing) early artwork that was featured
on this site. I wanted to give the older pieces a place to rest
rather than to try and sweep them away like they never existed.
I think it's a great snapshot into the artistic process and my development
as an artist. At least that's the idea for the page... One other
addition, is that there are now comments on each of the pieces.
No, I am not turning this website into a message board where people
can comment on my artwork but I did feel that it was necessary to
give people some insight into my artwork and see what I feel about
the pieces I have created over the years. Let
me know what you think about the new layout; I think it's easier
to use and more interesting... but what do
I know?
As
to artwork, I have about 6 or so pieces that are in varying stages
of completion. Redesigning the website has been a priority (believe
it or not) and now that it's done and ready to go I think the artwork
can go back to being my focus. I have a few new pieces here and
there. The piece above is a commission that I completed in early
2007 and a good example of something other than comic book artwork!
And yes I can do a commission for you as well; just
drop me an e-mail.
This
website has been around for over 5 years now and after a more than
2 year break I hope to actually get back into creating artwork and
sharing it with you. It's amazing how quickly the web has changed
in those 5 years and how this website is almost quaintly old fashioned
now. But I'm just here to share my art and my ideas and this site
serves those purposes well. Thanks for visiting... I hope to be
here for a while to come.
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