My new decade, New Year, news letter!

Happy New Year my Friends!

I hope the holidays gave you a little time to decompress and spend rejuvenating time with loved ones. I didn’t travel to see family this year, but spent time instead with friends and my little aging cat, Chopin.
This email is landing in your mailbox, perhaps as a bit of a surprise, because either you bought something from my website in the past or you joined my classes before Covid, or you’re supportive friends and family. Maybe you’re a brand new subscriber - Thank you all for being here!
I’m starting a new news letter to mark the launch of my upgraded website zoeevamy.com and to move away from the hustle and headache that is Social Media. Honestly, I struggle with constantly chasing the algorithm and what’s trending on Meta and would far prefer to engage directly with you and spend more time making and thinking about art! I’m starting with a small group of mostly familiar faces and would love to open up the conversation with you, please do write back with questions, thoughts or just to let me know how you’re doing

As a little gift for the New Year and to launch my new website, I’m sending a link to a ‘process video’ I made recently of two digital hybrid paintings “Snowdrops”. I plan to make more process videos like this which will only be accessible to my email group.

SNOWDROPS

Big 6-OH!

2023 was my 60th year. After spending three years through Covid, Art Directing at Atomic Cartoons in Vancouver (and loving every minute), I felt this significant birthday was a perfect opportunity to reconnect with my own artistic projects again. I seem to roll in 3 year cycles - balancing full time work in the animation industry with teaching and my art-making obsession. Beginning in March ‘23, I set out to paint every morning and find venues to exhibit my work. Overall, it was a terrific year. Having uninterrupted studio time has been blissful! At one point during the Summer, I had 10 paintings exhibiting at various galleries in Vancouver, San Diego, California and in Toronto, Canada. I travelled, made new friends and caught up with some old ones. After 6 months, I had tentatively planned to go back to work in animation, but the writers and actors strike over the Summer put the brakes on productions in ‘Hollywood North’. It meant more wonderful time in the studio for me, but it was good to get back to teaching my IDEA courses at CAP-U (Capilano University) in September.

Spring Teaching

Although Spring feels far off here in Squamish, BC with current temps in the negative double digits, the new semester has begun at Cap-U. I’ll be teaching a Lino block printing workshop for the Illustration students in February and I’ve been asked to chaperone the full third year cohort on their field trip to New York - also in February. It’ll be a busy and eventful month, so time in the studio will need to wait until March. If anyone can suggest activities for 22 Gen Z design students in New York in February, please do advise!

Studio Time

Happily, I gained enough momentum in ‘23 to keep painting for now and I anticipate being back in the studio in March. At the top of my list of future paintings is a series of owls to add to my Wildbird Collection. I’m thinking about Barred, Barn, Burrowing, Long eared, Northern Horned, Snowy, Pygmy and Hawk. Reflecting on my previous bird paintings, I’m most interested in showing them emerging, but partially concealed by their habitat. I like to suggest a little of their story too, their distinctive behaviour and relationship with the environment. Some of these new works will be commissioned pieces, which I’ve found to be a lot of fun and suit my working schedule. I’ve created a page on my website with guidelines for commissioning a custom piece, should you be tempted to order one for yourself.

COMMISSIONS

The year ahead seems daunting with all that dominates the news today, but here’s to keeping a level head and making time for the things that boost our spirits. This email is an invitation to share in my continuing artistic journey. I plan to send a letter once a month with links I hope will interest you. If it’s not for you though, I completely understand if you decide to unsubscribe.

Otherwise see you in February!

Take care,

Zoë