The art community website deviantART, with whom I’ve hosted my online photography portfolio for over 18 months, has been through some ups and downs in the time I’ve been on-board. The recent trend has been for the artists to take a back seat to money-making, and I have put up with this as I didn’t think it was that much of a problem. My photos were still getting viewed, critiqued and publicised, and that was fine.

Today I am angry. A few weeks ago the techs at dA caved in to public pressure and released their much-lauded “v5″, a fairly complete overhaul of the presentation side of the site. Unfortunately they made the fatal mistake of not waiting until the fucking product was complete before they published it. Thus, a whole bunch of stuff on the site was broken or looked bad for some time until they got around to completing those bits. This, it seems, is still ongoing, with many issues remaining unfixed.

Beyond the “regular” side of deviantART there is the Prints Service, a fairly professional and highly regarded service that allows members to submit high-resolution copies of their artwork and have the whole printing process handled for them. For this dA takes a cut of the face price of a print, but it’s a reasonable deal and members can set their own prices. The styling of each member’s “Store” was different to that of their main dA page, offering a far more professional appearance to potential clients.

Until a few days ago. Now, it seems, the Store pages have been tarred with the same shitty brush as the rest of the site, removing the last vestiges of professionalism from the operation. There used to be a simple “Store” link from each member’s page to his or her Prints Store area, this is now gone. Instead a “Prints” link takes its place, which takes the user not to the storefront, but to a page listing the member’s prints without any other information at all. Nothing. Fuck-all. To get to the artist information that used to be present, the user must click a print, then click the artist’s name at the top of the display, beside the title. This then shows the “redesigned” storefront. Are most users likely to do this? Fuck they are. And even when the artist information is displayed, dA have deigned to show only the “biography” section entered by the user, not their education information, nor their awards information - even the “email the artist” link has been removed completely, leaving no way for clients to get in contact. So full marks to dA for helping communication between artist and potential client.

It used to be that the Store carried a more refined, business-centric attitude and style than the rest of the site, and this is now gone. For myself and other artists who relied on deviantART as a channel through which to sell art, the ramifications are not good. I have been constructing another website in which to showcase my photography, as I thought that the “gallery” side of dA wasn’t professional enough - but I was hoping to link interested clients to my dA Store to complete any sales. I am now very reluctant to do this. It’s great to see that sites like dA have the interests of their users at heart as they publish unfinished site builds that completely tear up the structure and ideas that the previous site used to represent.

I’m exhausted, for one thing. But I must leave off sleep for at least another hour because I have to get this down, because for the last two weeks I’ve been putting off getting things down until tomorrow, and by that time my mental equilibrium has readjusted and I can’t think to write any more.

Time is flying. This has both positive and negative side-effects; I’m not yet sure which is in the majority. When you work a 9-to-5-centric job, or 8.30-6 as it is in my case, even at only three days a week, time distorts, you never seem to be getting enough sleep, and your days off become slightly disappointing preludes to going back to work.

The only positive thing I can think of right now is that flying time brings payday around with increasing speed, but you unfortunately still have to work in the meantime.

I just finished having dinner with former school friends - what was going to be our usual meeting of three became nine, some of whom I hadn’t seen for more than a year. And now afterward, I’m feeling shockingly juxtaposed. It was a great evening - the talk was endless and fascinating; I was talking twice as fast as usual in a subconscious effort to get everything out, everything that has been niggling me this year. All but three of us have been at Uni this year, and despite being thrown to the four winds we’ve come back and found that we’ve seen the same things, and now being back are feeling the same slightly dispossessed feelings that returning home and looking back over the year brings. We’ve lived the dream, and now we’re stuck in our ninetofives waiting for the next rollercoaster to begin. Having been nothing short of Free Radicals for a year, even the most routinized of us are having trouble getting used to the lather-rinse-repeat cycles of regular, regular, regular work.

I spoke of getting halfway through the first term before the shocking realization hit me that we were out there, that in every sense we had Gone Big, graduated into something else entirely. We all went to the same small school, and, it transpired, all found the same thing - that suddenly here we were so far away from all that, and while not shocking in a dramatic sense, it was unsettling in a way - curious that we’d made it this far without quite noticing.

In a way, sharing our tales and finding so much common ground again, it was as if we’d all gone off to the same Uni, lived it all together and come back. I guess ultimately things go along similar lines wherever you are, just with a local spin.

So it was with a sudden and desperate sadness that I stepped into the car - for everything I’ve lost, and for everything I’ve gained. In times like these, the distinction gets somewhat blurred. Reminiscing on the past, we all suddenly felt much older - a product, perhaps, of our speed society, as we looked with nostalgia on things only a few years ago, that somehow seem so dated. But I was encouraged to note that in looking to next year with equal curiousity and apprehension, I am not alone. And I don’t think I ever will be.