What's it all for?

I have started to list blogs that I would like to follow. I have already mentioned Dean Melbourne's blog 'From Perfume to Birdsonghttp://deanmelbourne.wordpress.com/.(A more lyrical title than my own. . can you change the name of your blog??). However, Dean's blog was really what got me going and in particular his reasons for his own blog. These are:

• help me to clarify my ideas. On that score I feel more certain than ever that I now have clarity about what makes me tick, the kinds of things that I want to express and the themes I want to explore. This will of course change and grow but it is not a problem that needs solving anymore.
• Build confidence in showing my work and sharing my ideas. It has been great to get comments and feedback and get used to showing what I do. Even the things that might never have been seen. I have done this in a very visual way but I feel that I have opted out of really sharing my ideas in writing. This is a bigger challenge for me and something that the blog could be about from now on.
• Give a behind the scenes view of my practise. This lately has taken the form of lots of progress shots. I have felt great about that (partly because i am justifying to myself that I am productive) But I am not sure these always make good posts and I hope to be showing the work in the flesh more often and am starting to feel that I would like to retain some “magic” for seeing them in the flesh. I certainly don't want to close the doors as the sense of people being around is essential to me personally. But perhaps the focus may shift from the physical to the philosophical (a bit).

Virtually all of this makes sense to me. the only difference is that Dean is clearly an accomplished and trained artist and I am most emphatically not.

Will be looking out for more artists' blogs to follow.