The Commodified Blog Versus this Journal

I have resisted commercializing my journal since the inception of Isaac Stolzfuts in 2003. Originally I wanted more readers, and thought I might be interested in publication in book form - a sort of Postmodern style tomb with Isaac and myself and/or other narratives running backwards and forwards through the pages simultaneously. However, in the newer (2006) The Artwork of John Bittinger Klomp I haven’t placed a counter, nor sought mutual links, much less advertising. The journal is about art, my art, philosophy, my politics, and religious beliefs. It is not about the American commodified lifestyle that has proven to be so problematic for us (this “Great Recession"). I have tried not to confuse personal identity with non-essentials, such as the acquisition of material things and / or the identification with them.

In the real (reads, actual) world I have to seek venue for the presentation of my art production. In the real world I have to worry about the price of, and sale of my artwork. In the real world I have to worry about the expense of framing and art supplies. In the real world I find myself upset when galleries that have installed and presented my work to the public have gone belly up. In the real world I have to worry that the persona I present is just too ordinary compared to the Modern and Postmodern image of the artist as eccentric. In the real world I create two separate kinds of art, photo-montages “gay male art,” and the art for everyone, pastel drawings of ocean and marsh. In the real world I am so lost in the surface of the ego as to worry about these kinds of things constantly. However, in the virtual world of cyberspace I refuse to do more than write about and be tied to those things that are actually more important (The exception being politics). Thus, I create a dichotomy between actual diurnal existence and the virtual space of my journal that seems to be a reversal of that which moral and/or religious judgment might dictate. It is also a reversal of how the world, virtual and/or actual seems to function, and that is a good thing.