From the Island of ArtsPort, Emeralda Region

Carrion Screenplay

2010-02-23T07:39:00.000-08:00

Making up a back story for a card game - The author sees an opportunity turn one of his life-changing experiences into a collection of Artist Trading Cards, so he’s brainstorming. As he searches, the subject of his thoughts—a dead Mexican named Ulises Carrion—whispers the right moves in his ear. 856 Words. ap100223. ©2010 Bill Ritchie.

Image Banks

2010-01-24T07:16:00.000-08:00

Walldows on a printmaking world - Working his way through a computer game on a self-assigned regimen, the author comes to the topic of rewards, the “pay off” for having completed another mini game. In this example he gets images from the musicians’ gallery of snapshots. He wants his own. 532 Words. ap100124. ©2010 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Reverse Engineering

2010-01-14T07:36:00.000-08:00

Taking a game apart and putting it together - His morning routine is to take a computer game apart and put it back together, but changing the pictures in the game. He takes a classic rock music group’s game, lists how many mini games are in it, and draws a new design for a game about his printmaking. 628 Words. ap100114. ©2010 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Burin Hunt

2010-01-04T07:37:00.001-08:00

First lesson in an online printmaking class
The year 2010 is the first year the author will offer an online printmaking course and in this essay he explains how an ordinary printmaking course will be the starting point for a computer game about printmaking. He’s been planning this for thirty years. 881 Words. ap100104. ©2010 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Opening Day

2009-12-15T06:33:00.000-08:00

First day at ArtsPort 2009-2010 - He pretends like a little kid who is at his first day in camp. ArtsPort is the name of an island he made up, placing it in a great lake in an imaginary place called Emeralda Region—a mysterious place haunted by ghosts in his new “machines,” his computers. 1053 Words. ap091215. ©2009 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Problem One

2009-10-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

Thoughts of a dying diehard printmaker - Winding his way through a problem on his computer one morning he hits on an understanding of the first problem to set before online printmaking users—a kind of jigsaw puzzle of why to learn old-time printmaking in a time of digital reproduction of prints. 1287 Words. ap091021. ©2009 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Coop Art

2009-06-03T07:08:00.000-07:00

When artists share their world - This artist thinks the time is right for realizing a global artist’s co-operative that has been in existence for a hundred years, but—like people who live on a mountain so they cannot see the mountain—few artists have known about it. It is a shared world. 1475 Words. ©2009 Bill Ritchie. ap090603. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Musical Press

2008-05-05T10:17:00.000-07:00

Lesson two in the course Learn Printmaking Online - While circulating a rough draft of the syllabus for the printmaking course he has proposed on learning printmaking, online, the professor deliberates on what kind of textbook students will need to make his proposal complete. Reinvention is key, he writes. 826 Words. ©2009 Bill Ritchie. ap090603. Full text via email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Teaching Materials

2008-05-03T08:50:00.001-07:00

Needs for Learning Printmaking Online - The designer of the world’s first online, hybrid course in the art and craft of printmaking that incorporates video game elements in its syllabus describes reasons the course is needed, what is in the box for it, and explains the reasons for taking it on. 1584 Words. ©2008 Bill Ritchie. ap080403. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

How Big A Battleship is to Wash

2008-02-15T13:25:00.000-08:00

ArtsPort’s shipwasher - Facing current education issues in the US is like approaching the job of washing a battleship: a very large job, and not something for which to volunteer. That is true, unless you live in Washington State. The author has an offering for the US Tech Corps. 1951 Words. Copyright 1997 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Why Play?

2008-02-03T11:21:00.000-08:00

Keeping memory alive - Keeping his brain alive is as important to this author as good nutrition is to most people. As he is in his sixties he must guard against memory loss so he is inventing a game that exercises his memory, and he uses computers and the Internet to help play. 1060 Words. Copyright 2008 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Leaving Mind

2008-01-24T13:00:00.001-08:00

A clue from J. S. Bach - Someone once said J. S. Bach left us his mind in the composition, Well Tempered Clavier—an instance of both a beautiful and instructional work of art. It is possible that today an artist can achieve the equivalent—combining instrumentation with digital media. 610 Words. Copyright 2008 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Comic Professor

2008-01-14T19:29:00.000-08:00

News from Lake Emeralda - Affecting the style of the renowned radio show, Prairie Home Companion, and yarns that Garrison Keillor features each episode, the Emeralda Inventor writes what it would be like to describe himself as an eccentric character in the News from Lake Emeralda. 1111 Words. 5113 Characters. Copyright 2008 Bill H. Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

We Build Our Rhythms as we Live Them

2008-01-04T12:17:00.000-08:00

Playing Emeralda - Games for the Gifts of Life-creates rhythms in the cycles of an artist's routine activity. It's like the circadian rhythms that effect so many in the world of living things, except it is a structure that comes from within and less so from without one's self. 582 Words. ap080104. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com