Marketing Mondays: Website or Blog?

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Today's topic was inspired by an artist who emailed me with this question:

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"Do you find your art is viewed more from your blog than from your website? I don't see the value of keeping up with both."  

My two sites do different things, and I use them differently. The website is a static tool; the blog, much more dynamic. Here's how I use mine:

. The website shows fairly recent work; it's never updated often enough, but that's because I have someone else do it, and it costs too much in time to rethink the changes and in money to pay for them. It offers a look at my work--not a catalog for selling, but for looking. My visitors have no direct contact with me, nor I with them.  (I launched my blog in 1998, back when everyone was on dialup and the only way to make a website was to know code. Eventually I will either buy a template and create my own new website or design a "website" blog that I maintain myself. But until I find a secretary, an assistant or a clone, it will remain as it is.)

. This blog is a dynamic tool that I maintain myself, allowing me to show my work--usually on the sidebar--and to be more fully engaged with the art world via reviews, reports (like the Miamipalooza coming up next month), commentary, links to events and, sometimes, to curate thematic collections of images in online "exhibitions."  It's also interactive via comments from readers, and via the many links I include throughout the posts.

. This blog links to blogs specifically for my resume and exhibition schedule, both of which I update regularly. I don't put those URLs on my business card. While I want them to be available and informative, I don't want them to be in-your-face. 
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. I also maintain a blog for the annual encaustic conference I founded and direct. Part catalog, part newsletter, it links directly to my non-profit partner, which handles registration and does outreach of its own. The conference blog allows me to run a business from my studio, to interact with my producing partner, and equally important, to communicate casually and informationally with the conference particpants.

. And, finally, I maintain a syllabus blog for the class I teach at an art college. (Subtitle: Because Photocopying is so Last Century). There are tons of links to artists' websites and other blogs, to books and articles, and to information about the speakers who will visit the class or whom we will visit. I update it as necessary. And when I teach the occasional career workshop, I post an informational blog that remains available to the students of that workshop for one month.
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Other people use their blog differently: as a website, as a gallery for showing, as a catalog for selling, as a studio or personal diary, as a newsletter, as a vehicle for political activism, even as a scrapbook for various projects.

So, over to you:  Website or blog? Or both? And tell us how you use each. Include your URL. If you can figure out how to make the link live, great. Otherwise, just post it; we can cut and paste it into our browser.