Archive for August 2020
Invisible Spreading: Virus and Art
In an earlier post (Waiting for This to End: My “Pandemic days” Project), I mentioned how at the beginning of the pandemic creating new art felt superfluous and I was stuck. I wondered what the role of an artist should be during a crisis as extraordinary as the one we were, and still are, living…
Read MorePandemic Trickle Down Economy
At this time of the year, Harvard Square is typically teeming with people moving en masse, which benefits street musicians like Peter Pobodry. A fixture in the Square, Peter is a terrific classical guitarist (I’ve bought several of his CDs over the years). I was glad to see that he had a mask at the…
Read MoreIsolation
It was mid March and the concern that the world would face a serious pandemic had turned from “a possibility” into an undeniable “reality.” My trip to Ireland for an advanced cold wax painting workshop got cancelled. In a matter of days, we went into complete shutdown. I started painting even more! I had completed…
Read MoreAmerican Dream. . .or Pandemic Nightmare?
After over 20 years of ownership changes, construction delays, and financial and legal challenges, the American Dream Mall was slated to open, finally, in March 2020, but then was forced to close temporarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic. One day, I decided to make a few photographs of this giant retail, sports and entertainment complex…
Read MoreUniversal Connection
Bill Oakes, my late husband, would have had a lot to say about the pandemic and the role of artists in helping people to process what COVID 19 has wrought on our collective psyche. Here are two examples of his work that are relevant to current times. Bill painted “Ps 91:1” (the original 911 call)…
Read MoreDinner is Served
I couldn’t resist substituting a mask for my napkin at a recent dinner get together with two if our neighbors in the “Driveway Bistro” (a parking space replete with designer lights and jazz music; no dress code). The evening was by normal measures a smashing success—-delicious food (chef hats off to my wife, Ruth), a…
Read MoreBrother Pine
In late March, I went for a long walk at the Mass Audubon Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary in Natick. Throughout the winter, I had found myself particularly focused on the only green growth to behold, the pines. I had never been so visually arrested by them in the past, and looking back, perhaps I had taken…
Read MoreThe Stories of the Great Flu of 2019
We must use the lessons of history to save us. We must use them in practical terms and in artistic terms. Although it seems now that much of the leadership of our country is taking a hard line about “opening” schools and businesses, against scientific evidence of the dangers of too precipitate a return to…
Read MoreMore Corona Moments: Weekly Recap
The last week has been pretty much the same non-normal=new normal equation, at least in my neck of the woods (Cambridge and Boston MA). I’m still finding the relatively empty streets, the outdoor dining extensions of restaurants, and of course, the masked people, to be quite surreal. My hope is that this situation doesn’t drag…
Read MoreUndercover in the Age of Droplets
In ordinary times I create large paintings in an enormous studio in the South End of Boston. During the Covid-19 pandemic, however, I have been drawing, painting, collaging and photographing from a small room and a porch on the outskirts of the city. My work involves sociopolitical themes expressed through onionskin dye stains splashed onto…
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