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An Arts Notebook: Find Me on Social Media at @AnArtsNotebook
Throughout the fourteen years that I have been blogging, my work has been housed on many different URLs and my social media presence has had many different handles. Now, I have embarked on the process of streamlining everything.
Origin of "An Arts Notebok"
I came up with this site, "An Arts Notebook," when I began my style blog, VintageBridgeStyle.com. Most of the time on that site, I wrote about my plus size vintage inspired outfits of the day, and my nickname is Bridge, so "Vintage Bridge Style" made sense. After three years of style blogging, in February of 2018, I found that I was blogging more and more about non-fashion topics such as food, travel, literary arts, neopaganism and witchery, gardening, politics, and entertainment. So I decided to create a second blog, this one, as an arts and culture blog spinoff to Vintage Bridge Style.
In the ensuing years, I have contributed less regularly to my style blog and a lot more to this blog. I also merged the previous existing blogs I had written into this blog, as well. So, in addition to the arts and culture content that I moved from VintageBridgeStyle.com to here, I also added the content from my old blogs:
- Bridget Eileen's Commonplace Book - an online "commonplace book" which is hybrid of scrapbook, journal, notebook of ideas, notes on books and other academic things, as well as sketches and other art
- A Vegetarian Notebook - thoughts on vegetariansim and the Mediterrranean Diet, as well as vegetarian recipes
- Dreaming Bridge Designs - photos of the handmade beaded necklaces I used to make
- Neophyte Poetics - the blog version of my Master's critical thesis; the "pop" version, if you will; I'd blog my ideas to flesh them out, then polish them up for ensuing formal drafts of the paper I eventually submitted),
- In the Pines - the very first blog I wrote starting in 2006, when blogging was a brand new thing; the title is an homage to living in Maine, the Pine Tree State
A New Name on Social Media and a New URL Coming Soon
The Trouble with the title "Vintage Bridge" is that people keep mistaking it for Vintage Bride - no "g" in the word. I've never yet been a bride, vintage or otherwise. Ha!
The other problem was that as obscure as I thought "Vintage Bridge" would be, there were actually a lot of people who took up that phrase as their URL or handle! So, I had to be Vintage-Bridge.com on the web, and was @VintageBridge on Facebook, Pinterest, and Tumblr, but @Vintage_Bridge on Twitter and Instagram.
I toiled and tinkered for a while, trying to find something that was available as a handle everywhere and as a domain name. On top of that, I realized the URL would need to reflect what it is I am doing on it. This is really really difficult, in fact. Unless you have a bunch of money to buy out people who hold domains or handles, it's impossible.
I had to compromise somewhat in order to get something that was universally available and fit the parameters for a Twitter handle, which is only 15 characters long. This is a blog about the arts and culture. ArtsAndCulture wasn't available. Anything that added to it was too long.
"An Arts Notebook" Is Born
More tinkering and I landed on "An Arts Notebook." The plus side is that it is universally available, short, and describes the gist of this blog well. I know the trouble with it is that it will be confused for An Art Notebook, which would be a different thing altogether--like an online sketchbook. But, that is the compromise I had to make in order to get something I could use everywhere.
So! Here we are! If you put in anartsnotebook.com into your browser, it will redirect you to Vintage-Bridge.com. And if you look, you will find me at "AnArtsNotebook" on: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, SnapChat, TikTok, Reddit, Periscope, Imgur and pretty soon LinkedIn.
Exactly what I plan to do with the URL AnArtsNotebook.com is yet to be determined, but stay tuned for further updates! And now, I hope, it will be easier to find me!