First off I really admire your work. If you weren’t posting it I’d have never seen it and I think the world would probably be less for it.
Second I was just thinking about this (or a similar topic) this morning. I’ve posted hundreds of processing outcomes and I’ve seen a bunch of traffic on them through this blog. For me the selection process of what to post is incredibly valuable. Sometimes when I’m looking through directories of stills produced from my processing programs I’ll have hundreds (sometimes much more) of frames to go through. When I look at the pieces to measure which ones are most aesthetically interesting I can look to the things that have garnered passive interest in the past. By measuring against this yardstick I’m able to select better pieces.
Just as me producing a drawing or processing outcome and presenting it to someone can make them think of something they’d like to create; I can use the passive level of interest to inform my selection process and refine the sketches I’m doing in the first place. This part is incredibly valuable to me and I’d hate to lose it.
The problem of course is when you start feeling like the tail (passive feedback) starts wagging the dog (your artistic sensibilities.) This for me is an incredibly dangerous line and I’ve found myself stopping part-way through programs because I know that I’m only doing it to try and juice my like counts on tumblr. I don’t know if I’m losing anything by doing so, but I do know that it doesn’t feel great.
I applaud your decision to put the posting on hold and I hope that you can find the center again soon so we can all keep piggy-backing off of each other (the artist community on tumblr) and continue to grow together.