Rachel E. Watson

Hello, readers. I know you're there.

This wonderful age of social media and internet analytics just offered up another cool twist recently. Google added a stats tracking tool to blogger.

Apparently it took effect in July, but I didn't find out about it until this week, when I was talking to a fellow blogging friend who pointed it out to me.

Here's how it works: When you log into your blog and land on your Dashboard (the administrator homepage), underneath "Manage Blogs" in the same toolbar where "Posting" appears, on the far right, there now is a tab called "Stats." Click through, and you'll find you can look at an overview or hone in more specifically on traffic sources and your audience demographics by country.

Screengrab of my stats page -- you're looking at the audience tracker tab.

So guess what that means? If you're reading this post right now from the U.S., Italy, Brazil, Belgium, Malaysia, Ukraine, Serbia or anywhere else in the world, I can look on my stats page and find a record of your visit and, in some cases, see what searches led you here. I don't know who you are or anything about you, but I know you're out there, and I hope you'll visit me again.

If you've landed on my page and you hail from somewhere outside the U.S., leave me a comment! I'd love to hear the story of how you landed here and what you're looking to find.

** Clarification: A reader brought up a valid privacy concern. Let me be clear that the only information Google Blogger Stats lets me see is the readers' country of residence and the search terms/search path they used to get to my page. It does not share individual IP addresses or personal information. **

I think it would be sweet to have 180 as a house number. Then it would seem like every time you turn around, you've turned around.

It's kind of ironic that the ArtPrize entry that has moved me probably the most so far was installed at Take Hold Church. I felt as if it actually did take hold of me. Rockford artist Alyson Dells' "Composed Existence" is a series of portraits painted on salvaged windows. They are arranged in the church's Division Avenue storefront space in such a way that viewers can walk around and amongst the paintings and become part of the work. The faces look as if they are standing behind the windows, peering out. I think that's why it grabbed my attention. When I stand at a window and gaze out, I tend to be lost in thought or struggling with something internally, and stuck motionless watching life continue outside.



The gazes found on these faces, whether direct or turned away, are hauntingly familiar. The expressions convey emotions we all, at one point or another, have felt, or will feel.

"Wheelbarrows and Shovels" is a 3-D installation at Grand Rapids Public Museum that was in the Top 25 but didn't make the Top 10 cut. I appreciated artist Cal Lane's method of using plasma cut lace patterns in construction site objects to illustrate the clash between masculinity and femininity. It's a beautiful piece done with exquisite skill and attention to detail.



This pointillist painting hanging in an upstairs corridor in DeVos Place reminded me of home. It's a quiet lane with the sun shining through the trees -- simple, beautiful and peaceful. I didn't catch the name of the artist, but whoever you are, thanks for helping me feel at home in a conference center, if only just for a moment.



If the last piece made me feel at home, then this work (found at the Women's City Club on Fulton Street) caused the opposite sensation. I can't imagine anyone feeling at home in a subway station. It screams chaos, busyness, movement, change. Just the fact that this piece was created using duct tape, something we use as a temporary fix, then throw away, speaks to the scene's impermanence and fluidity.