Updating My Website - To Meld or Not To Meld

It's been an odd couple of years for me. Hi, I'm AndAbelArt.

There are the obvious conundrums we have all shared in 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic and everything related to it. The Election and everything related to it. A depressed economy, police on the rampage, Karen videos and TikTok. What the actual..... 

I've chosen to just go along with the lockdown. I work a lot from home, and like the quite reprieve from society in general, so this is just more of the same to me. The TP hoarding was probably the most uncomfortable things got for me thought I can empathize with people who have had it worse, significantly so in many cases.

That said, I was already prepped for 2020 having just barely survived a dismal 2019. Start the year with capital to invest in my businesses for the first time, ever, and a couple months in I find out my son has cancer. 2020 wasn't unbridled horse flop, it was the tailings from 2019's horse flop! I could toss my hands up in defeat (may have actually done that for a couple hours before wiping my chin and steeling my resolve), but that's not how to handle horse flop. I'm from Montana, you can trust me on that. I chose to focus on what I can do instead of what I cannot. I started thinking about my approach to the Internet.

As an artist, I have many irons in my fire all the time. I like it that way. The struggle was, "How do I most effectively share this with the world and potential customers?" For a long time I thought I should make stand alone websites for everything, but I've realized that part of the selling point of AndAbelArt is the variety. All told, I offer five unique Creative Services and five uniquely distinctive Brands. One website to showcase them all now seems like the best approach.

To achieve this lofty goal, not just a website makeover for one brand, but a complete reinvention of what an AndAbelArt website should be and look like, would be my most encompassing project I've ever handled. I utilize Shopify, and I have my praises and complaints, but trying to force my vision for a website onto a platform that would, in all honesty, prefer that I have, and pay for, 10 separate websites, will be the key struggle. The rest is writing, organizing and designing, and I can do 2 out of 3 of those at a time, and usually quite well.

I'm not impressed with the start to 2021, but I balance my optimism with continual progress and hard work. Always have, always will.

Thanks for stopping by. A better website is on the way.