Hello friends,

It’s been a few months since my last update, and the time has seemingly flown by. I’m still here in Upstate NY, doing my best to slowly carve out space to live and work on a small budget so I can spend more time on creative things and in nature. Currently, this has taken the form of sleeping in a small, semi off-grid cabin in the woods, and working on fixing up a small barn (which long ago was home to a pony) on my family’s property to transform it into an art studio.

Besides playing with power tools and hanging out in the forest, I’ve also been doing some art things. In May, Andrei and I performed a characteristically wacky set as Reality Orp at the Psychic Garden in Rochester. The stars magically aligned and we managed to record decent audio and video of the full set, so it’s now up on Youtube and Peertube!

I also sent out the first Mystery Object & Quarterly E-zine for my new Zine Club project. (Some of you were on the receiving end!) There are now 18 total Zine Club members, which is pretty cool. I quite enjoyed creating both the physical object (3 vinyl stickers this time) and the virtual zine, which I provided as both a downloadable DRM-free PDF and an online 3D skeuomorphic reading experience (see GIF below). So far, the goal of Zine Club — which is to support weird art — seems to be working in two ways: it provides me with a small but regular supplementary income, and creates a framework of formats and loose deadlines that helps make me actually do things. I hope to keep this project going for a while! More about Zine Club: palomakop.tv/zine-club

I’ve also continued working on projects for Moon Ark Studio, which has lately been creating websites for friends’ projects and organizations. I am also hoping to take some time to overhaul my own websites as well; the Moon Ark site needs a “design portfolio,” and I want to make my artist website easier to update. I can’t express how much better it feels to put my tech skills to use for actual people, instead of a corporation. (Not to mention much more fun.)

🔜 Upcoming Things

In July, Andrei and I will be taking another road trip in our 1988 camper van. But it will be much shorter and chiller than last year’s 5-month, 7000-mile adventure (which ended up being too much for me…) We’ll be traveling around the midwest, starting with an artist residency & workshop in Iowa City, and some vague plans in other places including Champaign-Urbana, Kansas City, and Minneapolis. (If anyone reading this is in the Iowa City area, join our workshop on July 6!)

Well, that’s probably enough for now; more updates whenever I end up writing them. As always, thank you so much for being a part of this newsletter and helping me stay in touch outside of corporate social media platforms.

Until next time, be well.

Best,
Paloma Kop
palomakop.tv/now