Taking a step towards Artivism. As we have become visually overwhelmed by the fast forward flood of technological and social advances, how does our art step out from the stream and make a real and relevant difference? The current body of artwork that I have invested my energy in creating brings awareness to the local crisis in our animal shelters through digital painting in the high-traffic realm of social media groups. The overwhelming need to place dogs in both Foster or Forever homes is very much a cross-border concern, especially with Greyhounds.

The last Greyhound Track in Mexico, Agua Caliente, which happens to be just over the border in Tijuana closed this July for good. While many are relieved at the closure of the racetrack, it placed added stress on our local shelters. We are already in a canine crisis post-pandemic with shelters saturated like never before, and adding 150 Greyhounds in need of immediate adoption to the mix is daunting. Often around 3 years old when thy retire, Greyhounds can have serious injuries that need extra care. They have also been crate trained in a way that can make timing for bathroom breaks a daily periodic issue.

Known to be a sweet and gentle breed, these greyhounds need some loving retirement homes! Local greyhound adoption organizations like Operation Greyhound in San Diego and Fast Friends of Southern California are contributing to the major effort to place the retired Agua Caliente Greyhounds in Forever homes.

Getting the word out about Greyhounds and many of the dogs across the county in shelters from San Diego Humane Society to PAWS Coronado, the Foster & Forever Series aimed to harness the power of social media groups to promote local shelter pups to find their Forever families through artistic pet portraits and active media like digital painting process reels. It was a way to help these loving fur babies put a foot forward into a new life, and it exposed the greater public to the potential of art as artivism in using a media that has stepped beyond traditional art.

Art in general, including the Foster & Forever Series, at its very essence, is being threatened by the most recent policies of Meta claiming their right to use content posted on their platform to train generative AI. At this moment, I have halted production of the digital painting and progress reel posts in order to consider the implications of its use in training generative AI. The new Meta AI policies for Facebook and Instagram couldn't have come at a more inconvenient time. The Foster & Forever Series was just in its initial stages of development with just under 30 dogs represented as up for adoption. We as artists, around the world, are now reconsidering how we share and protect our work and process. Many of us are weighing the positive and negative impact of social media and AI, and the consequential effects which limit our visual voice and expression. We are stepping into new territory beyond what artists have ever had to navigate in the past, adjusting our processes quicker than ever before.