I read with interest this week an article by Ruth Jamieson in The Guardian extolling the virtues of Twitter for us visual arts types. It largely confirmed what I've known for nearly a year now: Twitter is a great way to stay virtually connected with friends and professional contacts. It's fast, painless and has a Zen-like 140-character limit that disallows users from overwhelming other users with lengthy monologues.

I'd like to take a minute and explain why Twitter works so well for "our" crowd. Artists? Typically work alone. Arts writers? Ditto. Freelancers in general? Ditto to the nth degree. That's a lot of solitude and, yes, there are (rare) times that I miss working in an office--if only for the water-cooler chat sessions. I now keep a Twitter addon in Read more...

� The National Gallery, London

(Psssst. This woman is not the Queen of Hearts from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, although she is thought to be the inspiration for Sir John Tenniel's illustrations of the Queen. So what's going on here? Click the image to find out!)

See more Wordless Wednesdays on About

The Staff at About.com and I are pleased to announce an open call for a Contributing Writer on the topic of Modern Art. Here is the official position description:

"Contributing Writer
GuideSite: Art History
Subtopic: Modern Art

Qualifications:

About.com is looking for a professional writer with a thorough knowledge of modern art to write for our art history site: http://arthistory.about.com. The successful candidate should be willing and able to work in a collaborative environment with an editor and the current Art History Guide.

The contributing writer will need to be capable of expressing complicated concepts in simple, practical language, and write for a non-academic audience. Candidates should have previously published writing � either online or in print � and be proven experts on art history.

What to Cover:

Definitions and Explanations:

• Profiles of major terms & movements: Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, etc.
• Timelines of major events and happenings in modern art.
• Glossary definitions of relevant terminology / jargon.
• Image galleries of artists, movements, periods, etc.

Profiles of Major Artists:

Create one page profiles of major artists from modern art. Please only cover artists that do not already have profiles in place. See this listing to see if an artist requires a profile: http://arthistory.about.com/library/artists/blnames_main.htm

Since this is a very visual topic, please make an effort to include images whenever possible.

Things to Avoid:

Please make sure not to duplicate content that�s already on the Art History site. Avoid using jargon, or any language that is intimidating to novices.

Of course, plagiarism and copyright violations are not tolerated."

Interested? To be considered, please email me. Tell me why you'd be a good fit--and big bonus points here for having read the site, being familiar with my unintimidating-yet-scholastically-sound style and trying to understand what us working collaboratively would mean. Important: Paste your resume or C/V into the body of the email. (Note: I will not open attachments. Why? Your email is coming directly to my personal computer, for which I am the entire Tech Support department. YOU try spending half of your work week cleaning trojans out of a system only to eventually have to wipe a drive, format and spend infinity reinstalling all of your programs, and you'll see exactly where I'm coming from.)

Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you.

This is a photograph of David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, delivering his keynote speech at the 2008 Conservative Conference last October. Apparently the Tory leader enjoys speaking and is not shy about vigorously expressing his opinions. Recently, he decided to engage Prime Minister Gordon Brown in a little spitting contest over, I kid you not, Titian's age at death.

The Prime Minister, in remarks made addressing the current global financial meltdown during the World Economic Forum in Davos, mentioned that Titan died at age 90 and was quoted as saying shortly beforehand that he was "...finally beginning to learn how to paint." Titian was in his (estimated) 70s when that quote was recorded, but minor matter.

David Cameron, however, seized upon the 90-years-old figure stated by the Prime Minister and publicly mocked Mr. Brown for getting his Titian dates wrong. Mr. Cameron stated that, no, Titian had died at age 86. Larger matter.

• He stated that Titian dying at age 86 was a fact.
• Some underling on his staff subsequently edited Titian's Wikipedia entry to make death at age 86 factual.

No, Mr. Cameron, and for shame, tinkering Underling. There are no "facts" regarding Titian's age. We only have recorded evidence of his date of death. Estimates of his true age at that time range from your 86 to 103, but even Titian didn't know how old he was. By even modern standards he lived to be an extremely senior citizen. However, it's not your prerogative to declare as fact how old Titian was. And for Pete's sake, keep your minion's fingers out of Wikipedia. This sort of partisan, anonymous editing is precisely why most educators worldwide do not accept Wikipedia as a credible reference.

Quite honestly, both of you, aren't there bigger issue fish to batter, deep fry and subsequently butt heads over than Titian references? Titian was never in danger of being unemployed and homeless. Next time nitpick over something to which your constituencies can relate, would you please?

Image credit: David Cameron hit back over Labour claims that he lacks experience to guide Britain through a financial crisis. October 1, 2008. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)