Making a Mark is 17 years old. What next?

This blog first went public on 5th January 2005. It's now 17 years old AND has just passed 19 million pageviews from nearly 6 million visitors.

The statistics run continuously in the right hand column in desktop or tablet view

Making A Mark's Visitors come predominantly, as you would expect, from English speaking countries. 

However, despite reduced blogging over the last 18 months of the surgery and recovery journey - it continues to have a global presence as you can see from the map of last year's visitors. 

The red dots are locations which generated visitors in 2022.

The Top 10 countries which generated the most visits are listed below in order of the total number of locations in each country

1. the UK - 2152 locations
2. the USA - 5685 locations
3. Canada - 650 locations
4. Australia - 1105 locations
5. India - 283 locations
6. Ireland - 147 locations
7. France - 715 locations
8. Germany - 512 locations
9. Philippines - 110 locations
10. Netherlands - 280 locations

Others generating more than a 1,000 visits included: New Zealand, Spain, Italy, Pakistan, Russia, Sweden, South Africa, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia.

Many thanks to those who think Making A Mark worth a visit or opening an email on a recurrent basis. You are the people who really keep this blog going!

For the first 10 years, I was publishing blog posts on an almost daily basis (usually with a "day off" on Saturday!) - including my very popular "Who's made a mark this week" post every Sunday. I gather many people thought there was a team behind the blog - but although it regularly ranked in top art blogs it's only ever been me!

In 2006, I published 348 blog posts!

When I got to 60, I retired AGAIN - but also started two new websites! I now publish roughly 150-200 Making A Mark posts each year - generally during the week - with rather less this year due to the surgery/recovery during February-April 2022.

The Future

I'm loathe to give up my "first born" and anticipate continuing blogging into the future. 

HOWEVER I now have much less time for blogging as I MUST spend very significant time each day taking exercise to stop myself completely seizing up with osteoarthritis and/or falling - because it's in my ankle, both hips and shoulder.

So now, age 68, my main priority is to walk daily with a focus on creating new challenges for myself e.g. increased steps, reducing how many times I need to sit down, how long I can walk  without a stick, walking up and down inclines etc etc. (PS Never ever take mobility for granted - keep moving!)

I'm pleased to say my daily walking is having a beneficial impact. Apple Health has a great walking steadiness measure and since I started walking again in May (after my surgery and the three months on one leg and a knee scooter) I've gone from "Very Low" to almost "OK" over the last 7 months and have significantly reduced my risk of falling most of the time..... However I'm still very stiff and often stumble whenever I start to walk though - which remains a significant concern.

Bottom line - my challenge going forward is to work out how to write about art while walking! I've no problem rabbiting away while doing Zoom Art Business Talks, so I need to have a ponder.....

NOTE: I'm currently "on a seasonal break" BUT will be back next week - and one of my first posts will be about the Call for Entries for the RA Summer Exhibition 2023.