Seems like we are emerging from under some dark clouds these days. The challenges of being a human on planet Earth are many. I haven’t added to my blog here in so many years. In the past five years I have lost many good friends and family members. It’s a consequence of living longer. Everyone just disappears. But where do they go? I have been thinking and planning a series of images based on what people report from near death experiences. I’m probably going to call it Beyond the Great Threshold. At this point in my life I feel I am approaching it. But who knows? I may be here for many more years. My aunt on my mother’s side lived over 106 years. Aunt Marion was featured in a National Geographic issue about long lived people when she was 103. She loved to whistle loudly, worked in her garden and had a vibrant spirit. Quite an amazing lady. This week I am on my way to the SNAG Conference in San Diego which is a gathering of metal artists and jewelry people from all over. I’m giving a short talk on a panel about Human/Computer interaction. My part is about using AI to help design jewelry. I think of AI as an IA: Intelligent Assistant. Sometimes not too intelligent at this point but I expect that will improve. Working with a text to image program gave me some needed push in unexpected directions. I have always love the scale of some ethnic jewelry but was never able to encapsulate it in my work. Just made the leap and it was good. Hopefully no one will throw rotten tomatoes during my talk. My message to the audience will be that we need to know everything we can about AI because it is infiltrating all our electronic interactions. Now is not the time to bury our heads in the sand.