Making A Mark is 18 years old!

Making A Mark is now an adult - and 18 years old! ;)

I should have really done this on Friday which was this blog's 18th birthday in terms of "going public" - but I've been having a major clear out and chuck event - which will continue this week aka "no tubes running all week and it's freezing as well" 

What happened in 2023

Making A Mark continues to have followers all over the world - mainly but not exclusively from people in English speaking countries

This is the map of where visits came from in the last year.

In 2023, this blog had 

• c.250k visitors for what I think was an average of just under 3 blog posts a week
• 1,159,103 pageviews according to Blogger during the last 12 months - which is just under 100k pageviews a month.

Not bad going for somebody who is semi-retired - at least from daily blogging!

Making A Mark at 18

What's happening in 2024

The main event in 2024 is that I will hit my 70th birthday.

I started to wind down from daily posting back when I was 65. As age and the osteoarthritis progresses, I've become ever more conscious of needing to spend time 

• keeping me mobile - hence a lengthy walk every day, which is the only time I feel like I used to when I was younger. Notwithstanding I can barely move in the evening after sitting down for too long.....
• being able to do things while I'm still around  
• being able to do things with my partner is still around - in sound body and mind

So I won't be looking to increase what continues to feel like a diminished rate of posting for somebody who blogged on a daily basis for years.

What I will be doing is endeavouring to introduce people to more of my archive of 4,469 posts about art since January 2006. 

• Especially as a number of them were on thematic subjects and posted over a period of time. For example, back in 2007, I was starting my Van Gogh Project - see Introduction to the Van Gogh Project
• Plus highlighting some blog posts from the same month in previous years. Such as 
• Skating and sketching in London (2007)
• Holbein in England - and at Tate Britain (2007)
• Plant Motifs and Art (#2) at the V&A (2007)

Plus continuing to post on things which interest me - particularly art society exhibitions / open competitions and popular art programmes on television.

But I am very gradually slowing down to make more time for me.....