Paloma Kop

2024 Year in Review

January 12, 2025

Portrait of Paloma Kop with their video equipment

I wanted to post something like this around New Year's, but I missed the window where I could publish it without mention of my lateness. But I have a good excuse: I was fully in the middle of moving! As of January 1st, we are officially leasing a lovely apartment in New Haven, CT.

Even though 2025 is already well underway, I'm taking a moment to reflect on the past year. Here are some of the things I did in 2024:

  • Rebuilt my artist website (the one you're looking at now!) to use 11ty, a static site generator. It was a lot of work, but the effort I put in will make maintaining and updating this site about 1000% easier. (More about this in the colophon.)
  • Attended my fourth vipassana meditation retreat, and completed a 100-hour meditation teacher training program. I haven't taught any meditation classes yet, but the things I learned have helped me deepen my meditation practice.
  • Taught my first college course as an adjunct professor: Intro to Animation at Hamilton College. (I actually taught two sections, so my first two college classes!) This was a wonderful experience for me, and I hope to get more opportunities to teach again in the future.
  • Taught two online classes through Polyphase Portal: one about HTML & CSS, and one about video feedback. Each one met weekly for a month. I preferred teaching IRL, but it was cool to be able to include folks from outside my local area.
  • Lived in various free and inexpensive alternative spaces in the forests of Upstate New York, including a few months of house-sitting, a converted barn, and most recently, a 30-foot yurt. Although I've decided to move back to a more urban area, I really enjoyed getting to spend more time in nature, regularly being in the presence of waterfalls, cool rocks, and all sorts of animals.
  • Survived another year without a full-time job.
  • Saw a total solar eclipse for the second time in my life.
  • Attempted to go on a summer road trip that was aborted quite early on.
  • Built a shed on my parents' property. This was my largest solo woodworking project to date.
  • Played 4 shows, co-led 2 video art workshops, and did an art installation, a group show, an artist talk, and 2 presentations at open source meetings.
  • Started Zine Club!

Compared to 2023, when we spent 5 months driving across the U.S. in a van, I spent almost all of this year in one area (New York State). But it has felt like just as much of a strange, meandering journey as the last year did. And while I still haven't quite landed somewhere that feels like a long-term, sustainable lifestyle, I feel like I'm moving in the right direction, fumbling towards a balance between my sometimes-conflicting needs for freedom and structure, for unhurried time and financial stability, and so forth.

I don't know exactly what happens next, but I'm curious to find out. So onward into 2025, and whatever this weird timeline we all inhabit holds for us next.