It took about half my life to publish this website. Technically it took only a few weeks, but conceptually it was a difficult birth. For ages, I've been torn about how to structure and split up my web presence. My website lucasdietrich.com has existed in various iterations since 2008 (I think!), but I never had a standalone art portfolio. For a long time I defended the idea of showing everything on a single website – in my case graphic design, art, music, photography and various other things. And fundamentally I'm still sympathetic to this approach, because it provides a fuller—if never complete—picture of a person. We're not just insert job title.

Still, the thought of separating content has haunted me for as long as I can think in websites. External perception is only one aspect. Another is that I've increasingly struggled with categorization: What do I actually show on lucasdietrich.com? Graphic projects with artistic ambitions? Art projects that won't scare off design clients? This self-censorship was one reason the website stagnated in recent years.

Clarity

I realized I wanted to give the artistic work its own (digital) space. Not some platform or network, no public profile and no newsletter provider, and also not a subpage on lucasdietrich.com. I registered the new domain lucasdietrich.art last year – confusingly similar to the old one except for the TLD (.art vs. .com) – but it took another 13 months before the new website would materialize. During this odd year I repeatedly changed my mind: Everything on one page after all, an external platform (Pencilbooth, Cara, Cargo, Ghost...), avoid platforms, delete the art posts from the .com domain, leave everything exactly as it was, or just leave everything be. My oh my.

In the end, I arrived at this conclusion:

1. Better to make a decision than eternal back and forth.
2. Open a space without major expectations: Here I have a place to show my art away from external curation, spatial limits or exhibition stress.
3. The new site should (also) be an archive for myself. Not everything I make needs to be documented, but a personal retrospective is worth gold.
4. My content should no longer be (exclusively) absorbed by some arbitrary social media platform. Done with the flatshare – own apartment!
5. And finally, I'm not accountable to anyone at all, no external expectations or obligations.

It's an experiment with little to lose. It's never been easier to create a digital space for yourself. For the moment, there's little to see here – and that's okay. I am looking forward to filling this space at my own pace.