Van and camper, gap semester, art fundraiser
Hello!
It's been quite a while. I hope you've been well. Last I wrote, I hadn't yet gone on vacation, and that was last fall. Time to put a long time in a short update!
About said vacation: we drove across Canada to go hiking the Rockies, aided by my brother's short and stout Sprinter van, named Billy. We hiked mostly on the Alberta side – around Banff national park, if you know the area.
The trails we trotted crossed fertile forest and snow-capped tops, usually all in the same day hike. The views were beautiful and humbling. This is land that's colossal, dangerous, and deeply endearing.
Back home in November, I continued work on what would eventually release as the Maps for grief collection, a generative art series I offered on the Art blocks platform. It has 500 pieces, in the hands of roughly 300 collectors. By adopting a generous donation policy (an extension of Art Block's own requirement), I got to generate over 50k CAD in donations to cultural and fairness initiatives here in Canada. This, too, was immensely humbling.
Maps for grief #413
🖤 Loved lately
This short Twitter thread by Jean Yang on "trickle down" software adoption: Assuming the solutions made for huge organizations will advantage a small team just the same.
If you're a podcast person, I urge you to give a chance to The Trojan Horse Affair. The plot quickly gets convoluted (which is kind of the point), but it's an intriguing and very human take on narration, journalism, and prejudice.
And you know I love my Internet rabbit holes, so here's a fun one from last year: Why is this "mermaid" website on every Google results page in Norway?
See you soon!