2024 marks the 25th year of my online presence. Back in 1999, I created my first webpage. There was a chat program called ICQ (my generation will remember), and you could create your webpage with it. I put in a few drawings, a few stories, whatever I had at the time.
The idea of having a webpage always excited me. When I look back, I think it’s because I was an introvert (still am, in some ways). It wasn’t easy to connect with the people around me, but I wanted to share whatever I was interested in with others. So I opened up to the world wide web.
In the past 25 years, I had various attempts at building pages. Learn a little HTML, use Flash, use other programs… During this time, the internet became simpler. Various “interfaces” surfaced, making it easy for people who weren’t tech-savvy (or just lazy like me) to create their presence without a lot of knowledge. I, of course, used this as much as I could. Why spend time learning to code when someone made it simpler for you, right?
Initially, this was my personal webpage. For the last 3 years, it’s been the address for my LEGO blog. Very recently, I moved it to another address to use this as a personal page again.
All these years, I tried to categorize my interests. I didn’t want my photography mixed with my drawing, my art with my writing and so on. In my narrow-minded opinion, I thought the audience for each was different, so they were supposed to be on different places.
This time I’m trying something else. I’m going to put everything I have here – well, maybe not everything, but let’s say whatever I want. Whatever I feel like. If you don’t like something, simply move to somewhere else. Things you will find here are what makes me whole, what makes me… me. And I no longer want to hide that (or categorize myself).
One last thing… the image you see on the right, “PA”… that doesn’t stand for “Pinar’s Anomalies”. It’s my initials, and how I sign my drawings. I decided to use the word “anomaly”, because when I read its meaning, I felt a connection to it.
“Something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected. Something different, abnormal, peculiar, or not easily classified.”
Yep, that’s me.