WWW.ALEXANDERTAN.COM: Collection of Contemporary Paintings from the Philippines

Pinoy Art Lovers Unite continued

The site started out as a free site in geocities (www.geocities.com/atandy70), the original site has recently been removed by Yahoo.  I had a blast taking pictures, making sure images were squarely taken,  even taking pictures of works under glass. The site was updated every week, more often when other collectors started sending images.  The site also allowed me to meet several good people in the art scene, more people who could help me rationalize my habit of collecting paintings (collectors = bad influence).  All I wanted to showcase on the site was the images, I didn't care much for text and hi tech graphics until...  I got an email saying that the site layout was 'dated'.  I stopped in my tracks. 

For a minute I got insecure, I hired a third party to design a new site with all the bells and whistles but it still wasn't the site I wanted to see.  I was wrong to think that images could not be copied (given the right tools,  its actually possible to copy any image on your screen, even video). Because of the large files, site pages downloaded a bit slow, and as expected  -- I was not able to update the site.

I got into the world of multiply (http://ccpp.multiply.com). Uploading images became quite easy and the multiply community of artists and collectors gradually grew. I met more friends, but also realized that there was a lot of strange people in the art scene.  I was not sure I was ready to deal with all the secrecy, commercialism and  pedantry -- things were not as complicated when I began collecting in 2000.  Inspite of it all, I continued collecting, protected my artworks and secured my storage space. My tastes have changed a bit, unloaded some (i.e. quite a lot) works, but kept some (actually, a lot)  old favorites.

2008 marks my return to web publishing.  Hopefully, I have become more intelligent in my purchases, and more politically correct in my comments/criticisms. At the end of the day, its not about having more works nor is it about getting along with every artist/ critic/ gallery owner, its about the art.  After all, the site is about collecting beautiful works of Philippine art.  Pinoy Art Lovers Unite!

If you wish to have a particular work included in the site, please email me at alextan@alexandertan.com.

To submit images or comments. Please email me thru: alextan@alexandertan.com