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Happy New Year, Friends! Here we are, a quarter century into the ‘new millenium’! 2025 is the Chinese year of the Wood Snake who by all accounts, looks favourably on Rabbits. What a relief! How’s it going so far? Are you still easing in, or has it been a shock to the system, akin to the Vancouver Polar Bear Plunge? It occurred to me that if I live through the next quarter century, I’ll be the same age as both my parents and other spectacular octogenarians today. Kudos to you all, you know who you are - you’re an inspiration! Mending
I miss Chopin (my recently departed feline compañero) so much and to ease that, I’ve been getting outside more than usual for January. The days have been mostly dry, icy-cold, but gloriously sunny - perfect for walking and talking with friends, in the woods, along the rivers and at the estuary where we now have a beautifully designed Spa’kw’us Feather Oceanfront Park. I even braved sub zero temperatures to paint alongside plein air pal, Kee, in Whistler. Everything was frozen, the lake, our fingers and the paint! We gleefully broke the ice, sipped hot tea and conspired to do many more excursions this year! There’s so much to notice in Nature even when it appears to be dormant. Bald Eagles have been prolific this year due to an abundant, late run of Coho Salmon - a wonderful, reassuring cycle to witness. My house plants are throwing out new leaves galore with all the extra pampering. The studio is now clear and ready for fresh, new starts and I’m prepping for my CAP-U IDEA Spring classes. Next QC
I can’t help wondering though ….. what will life be like in 2050? Will we still have Nature to get lost in and wonder at, or will we be plugged into simulations? Will our food be healthy and delicious? Will we have robots looking after us in old age or will we live in self sustaining, utopian villages? Maybe they’ll ship us all off to a colony on Mars?! The AI question The other night I joined a merry band of ‘tech rebels, dream architects and neural navigators’ at the Macmillan Space Centre in Vancouver for their monthly AI Meetup. It was my first, so I persuaded 2 of my former colleagues from animation days to come with me. The event seemed somewhat hap-hazard and unpolished, but we heard a diversity of voices expressing concerns and optimism about the way AI is taking over our lives, education systems and industries. There are many questions around ethics and the environmental cost of running massive data centers required to train AI models. But artists are a curious, visionary and mostly principled bunch and I think it’s important we take part in the conversation. And as an instructor, I feel a responsibility to help my students make safe, ethical and informed choices. One of my projects for this year is to understand it all better, so stay tuned. I’ll be writing about my findings! If you’ve read all the way down to here, you’re a star - thank you! I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of this (or anything else). Thank you to all who have already bought raffle tickets for our Birds ‘n Words fundraiser - Please do consider contributing - help us reach our goal of $2,000, support the arts and our local bird population! Otherwise, ‘til February, Zoë XO
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