The Site: online since today.

I'm now working with the Drupal content management system.  I used Indexhibit as a portfolio site for a few months prior, while I formulated a plan for how I want to present my artwork. Indexhibit is an adequate solution for a very limited range of functionality, and it is designed for non-technical users. Since I'd already developed a few Drupal and WordPress sites for customers I quickly grew tired of seeing my web site appear like the thousands of other Indexhibit sites out there.  

The only decision I had to make was, which CMS to use? Drupal 6 or WordPress 3.0?

Although WordPress is much easier to use than Drupal, Wordpress 3.0 "Thelonius" was quite ripe as of summer 2010. I had concerns that it would be insecure, a valid concern given my prior experience in hardening infected WordPress sites, and I also hadn't seen many functioning implementations of the WordPress store module. Drupal 6 on the other hand, though more involved from a developer/admin perspective, offers more options and greater potential for customization, and the Ubercart store module is more mature than Wordpress'. I also knew I'd want to grow my site into a unique web presence over a long-term period and though WP can be used in varying creative ways at its heart it's still just a blog. My final decision to bite the bullet and roll out the Drupal tanks hinged primarily on my desire to sell my artwork directly from my site.

The first priority was to replace the functionality of my previous Indexhibit web site, which was essentially a static portfolio. To do that I had to devise an ideal way of dealing with image galleries that would handle my artwork. I found my solution to be a mix of CCK, ImageCache and Drupal Views. Drupal allows me to create rich data structures and cross-link them on the fly to pages and categories. A single artwork can have dozens of images associated with it, and can be tagged up and categorized in a variety of ways.

Beyond facilitating an intuitive, rich browsing experience for the viewer through the use of custom-developed complex data, Drupal provides me with a powerful platform ready to leverage my content out onto the Internet.

Over the coming weeks I'll be adding:

• A store where one can purchase my paintings directly. 
• An iPad slideshow web app. Tablets velcroed to living-room walls. Enough said.
• Detailed info concerning my upcoming residency project in Congo-Brazzaville, which coincidentally has something to do with Drupal development as well.
• An over-arching general knowledge base with various topics, utilizing multiple taxonomies.

 Please stay tuned...