Digging Star Wars Blog: A WORK OF ART

 

As some of you know, I work at QVC, part of the Qurate Retail Group, and right now, Digging Star Wars (this very classic film blog!) is on display in the art gallery at QVC’s headquarters, Studio Park in West Chester, PA. The exhibit is curated by an in-house employee group known as TALENT which celebrates artists in the company. 

The prompt for this particular exhibit was “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” and the exhibition opened on Valentine’s Day 2024. Invited artists were asked to comment on what they love about their craft/art. Naturally, I wanted to share my passion for classic film and this blog. Here’s my write-up on Digging Star Wars that’s featured in the exhibit:

Blogs may seem like a fad of the past, but the blogging community is alive and well. Go on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, and you’ll see multiple, daily #writerslift posts asking bloggers to self-promote their latest entry. Academia loves to write about blogs mainly because the blog belongs to the press agentry/publicity model - a one-way asymmetrical model of communication, traveling from an “organization” to the public through some type of mass media, usually to persuade a desired audience. Yet, as several academics put it, a blog is a hybrid of targeted information and personal revelation. It’s no wonder that I concocted Digging Star Wars in 2010 during my master’s classes at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. My persuasion? To get folks to consider watching classic movies – whether they inspired something in Star Wars or not. My personal revelation? Well, read on.

For the past 14 years, I kept the Digging Star Wars blog going. I often use the “royal we” in my posts as many, many special guests – including several QVC team members – join my blog’s vlog YouTube videos or guest write a series on Digging Star Wars. The entries have evolved through many different formats through the years, and we recently settled on text entries with YouTube movie trailer clips to illustrate the films we’re pushing. All this work is just one reason I love the blog. It’s nice to have something that is “totally yours” to create, experiment, and share. My blog has always been more about quality than quantity – which is quite evident by the mere number of followers and the occasional comment or two on a post. Yet, Digging Star Wars has brought wonderful experiences to me including being asked to head up the Museum of Science Fiction film festival, appear on Turner Classic Movies, converse with creators of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, guest on fellow film fans' blogs, podcasts, and online magazines. Digging Star Wars even won an award for our 2023 summer posts! By expressing my love of Star Wars and classic films through the blog, I’ve had fun with existing friends and made new ones. In short, I’ve found my people – as they say. I (and “We”) hope you enjoy this chance to peruse Digging Star Wars. To date, we’ve covered approximately 400 films. So, there is plenty to see…

Another nice aspect of the exhibit was I was given the creative freedom to display Digging Star Wars. I had a fun time picking books out of my collection to prop up the company laptop that has my surfable blog on it. 

Visitors to the exhibit are encouraged to interact with the blog, click around, and leave a comment if they wish.

It's truly an honor to have this blog considered as a "work of art" among my co-workers’ artwork, all of which is beautiful and inspiring. The TALENT ART Gallery is near an in-house theatre where QVC occasionally has live studio audiences for select shows and livestreams.

I made sure to include some free Digging Star Wars swag for gallery visitors – these sparkly stickers in honor of our ongoing Top 100 Henry Mancini Films series.

I’m handing out these stickers at all our Henry Mancini-themed events this year – such as the Two for the Road (1967) screening Digging Star Wars hosted at The Colonial Theatre back in February. Digging Star Wars will be hosting another screening this May at The Jimmy Stewart Museum. Stay tuned for more details on that – and another chance to pick up these limited-edition stickers!

THANK YOU to QVC and the TALENT team for including my blog in this wonderful exhibit. 

The “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” exhibit- featuring Digging Star Wars - closes at the end of March 2024.

#IworkatQVC

#IworkatQRG

#lovemyQVCjob

#lovemyQRGjob

#memberoftheQVCteam

#memberoftheQRGteam