Technodoltery

I have been trying, with marginal success, to get my right-brained artist wife to acquire the technology skills she will need in order to navigate through life after my demise.

By constantly moving the goal posts in that frustrating game, the tech industry is not making it any easier for the self-described “technodolt.”

It seems that every time we wake up, our devices have a different look. We have to learn all over again how to perform tasks that we had been performing quite satisfactorily the day before.

When he was in his 90s, George Burns was asked how he felt about death. “I can’t die,” he said, “I’m booked.”

Well, I can’t die, I have to turn on the TV.

Tech skills are now an essential component of an artist’s business. It’s necessary to take photographs as studies for paintings and to document finished works for business records, for placement on the web site and for use in advertising and promotions. Social media involvement is needed in order to spread the word to potential buyers. Email blast announcements of upcoming shows require a Mail Chimp app on which to add and update email addresses of recipients and design the announcements. Mail Chimp, for example, has changed the location of its logout button several times since we started using it, driving the poor artist into a panic. Would she, like a denizen of “The Matrix,” be trapped in monkey land forever?

In order to accept payment for their work the artist needs to know how to use such apps as Zettle/Paypal along with credit card readers and QR codes. Once the funds are collected by Paypal, the artist has to use their Paypal web site to transfer funds to their bank account. They have to confirm that the money flew–how else?– by logging in to the bank’s web site.

Emailing and texting customers is obviously required. Business cards and title cards for displayed work need to be designed and printed. Advertising posters need to be designed as well. Printing them requires navigating the self-service tech of printing entities such as FedEx. Similarly, photos of paintings with specific dpi and format specifications must be sent to a printing company in order for them to create greeting cards for sale.

Want the best deal on supplies? Plough through the e-catalogs and order on-line or play the discount game with e-coupons from Michael’s where if you buy anything without a 40% discount, you’ve been had.

Endless inefficient email and text strings fly back and forth between gallery mates between monthly meetings. The artist’s web site must be monitored and amended frequently and she must communicate with her web master when the protocols used by the host company change. And they frequently do. Now her web master is in the process of switching to a different host. Doubtless, this will provide hours of fun learning their formats.

Passwords are another source of stress. While they can be applied with a fingerprint, my wife literally works her fingers to the bone in her work and her prints are eradicated.

Maybe she should commit some crimes. Dust for fingerprints all you want, CSI, there will be none. She can use mine for now, but once I’m gone she’ll have to keep my finger in a jar, a relic like St. Catherine’s at the cathedral in Siena. They have Catherine’s head as well, but unless they hook up my brain to a computer, I doubt it would do her much good.

The list goes on. And on. And on.

All she really wants to do is create beautiful works of art. Selling them is nice but, making money has never been her primary concern. On the other hand, if they didn’t get sold we’d soon be threading our way between piles of artwork in order to move about the house.

Her treasured creative time is constantly being stolen by the demands of the moving target of tech.

How do I manage to adapt to the ever changing landscape of cyberspace? Well, for one thing, unlike my spouse, I am not afraid my machine will blow up if I push a wrong button. For another, I am a persistent SOB who will bang away at the blasted machine until I somehow arrive at a solution. In a pinch, I have even resorted to reading a tutorial.

I’m the type of person who is able to see the forest. The eye of the artist is better at looking at each individual tree. That’s why artist’s trees actually look like trees, not tree stick figures. Consequently, I am able to take in the whole of a page and scan it for the specific function that needs to be selected. Sandy reads word– by word– by word–by word. I understand the basic steps common to many computer actions. The artistic mind sees each task as unique in itself, a wheel that has to be continually re-invented.

In most ways this has been a blessing. We complement each other in dealing with the daily challenges of life, but, for things technological, it is a curse. It necessitates that we each be distracted constantly from our own work as we sit across the kitchen table trying to deal with our individual projects. It is happening now as I attempt to write this essay and it was happening a few minutes ago when I was trying to read the paper. It happened even while I was trying to edit a publicity piece on her next show, another one of my duties as the writer in the family. It’s a labor of love and fine for now, but what will she do when I’m gone?

To her credit, unlike a couple of other aging art gallery members who have thrown up their hands and surrendered to the electronic beast, Sandy keeps plugging away. She has been rewarded with increased recognition and sales. Her work is so beautiful, it would be a shame if she couldn’t continue to show it to the world, but in today’s world that requires some level of competence with technology.

What I fear most about death is not that my life will cease. Every dog has his day, and I won’t know the difference once I’m gone. What pains me is the thought of abandoning my beloved to face the challenges of the digital age on her own.

There’s a joke: What’s is the best kind of man for a woman to be marooned with on a desert island? Answer: An obstetrician.

Long past her need for such assistance, my wife would perhaps be best served when I’m gone if she were to find herself a nice computer nerd.