The Cattery

The Cattery

Another Misspent Portrait of Etienne de Silhouette

7 March 2004
Filed under Art, Business, Design, Folio, Text, The Interweb

Something I've been working on in my head for a while is The Oily Rag Project; basically, my web design skills in exchange for artwork. It's a simple concept: I provide a range of web services (hosting, domain-name registration, design, content-management where needed) for the cash price of my outgoings (like the hosting and domain name), plus artwork to the value of the time I spend on design and construction.

Considering my generally poor cash-flow, I'm rarely in a position to buy artwork, and I imagine that in many - even most - cases, an artist is in a similar position. There are some great artists' sites around, but they're more often than not built by artists who have developed their own web (usually Flash) skills. My idea with The Oily Rag Project is to keep the sites as simple as possible, to make these kind of exchanges financially viable, and to put control over updates etc firmly in the hands of the artists, to avoid time-sucking piece-work later on.

Although I've got a few possibilities simmering on the back burner, the first of these ventures actually went live this weekend. I shared a studio with the artist, Christian Capurro, for several months last year, and so was familiar with his work (in fact, I collaborated on this particular project) and this meant that I was quite familiar with his artistic vision. I have to say that working for somebody with highly-developed visual skills is a real treat – Christian dropped by a couple of nights ago to look at my early versions of the site, and was able almost immediately to suggest changes that brought the whole thing together.

The upshot is that the first attempt has been a rewarding and enjoyable experience – from conception to online in just a (somewhat busy) fortnight. I've got lots of ideas about how I'd like to build the project over time, but not so much time to realise them at the moment... stay tuned.

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