Archive for September 2020
Helmet + Mask = The New Headgear
By now it’s pretty commonplace around Cambridge, Mass., to see people wearing protective headgear and masks on bicycles, scooters, mopeds, and even motorcycles. I’m grateful for their effort and commitment to helping stanch the Corona spread. But the masks—a constant reminder of the state of the world today–are still too recent and I do a…
Read MoreShipwreck
A few weeks after lockdown started I made arrangements to vacation on Plum Island on Cape Ann in Massachusetts for two weeks. It was March; surely by July the lockdown would be over and I would go paint on the beach and eat ice cream and lobster rolls, lots of lobster rolls. Lockdown wasn’t over,…
Read MoreWorking through Confusion
In March when all was confusion and uncertainty I began hand stitching small six-inch pieces. Stitching by hand is rhythmic, like breathing. The pieces reflected my thoughts and experiences in the early months of the pandemic. I walked every day in the Middlesex Fells. The reappearance of young plants as the spring took hold was…
Read MoreIsolation Blues
Isolation Blues: keyboard, conch, homemade single-string guitar, Roli Lightpad, rattles. Performed by Headzic, aka John Shapter Headzic · Isolation Blues I am a musician and a performer. When the lockdown was announced in March it felt as though the rug had been pulled out from under me. A gig I had the next week was…
Read MoreMystery Wins
I use Instagram as a rough barometer to show me which of my images of the pandemic appeal the most. Masked faces are the most popular in my feed, but not just any masked faces—I get the most engagement with images of faces that are nearly completely obscured, leaving it up to the viewer to…
Read MoreThe Final Touch
My models for this painting are from a photo I took in the neighborhood, pre-COVID-19. They had been serene and self-assured, moving with certainty, in my unfinished painting from a while ago. When I recently revisited the work, it seemed that they — the figures — were asking for an update. A small one, really,…
Read MoreMore Corona Moments, Recap
Just when I think things are starting to look the same, someone interesting finds his or her way into my viewfinder. I’m always on the lookout for interesting masks or prosaic scenes that aren’t mundane at all when you factor in the face coverings and social distancing. Here’s a recap of recent miscellaneous images ranging…
Read MoreLockdown Reboot
“Randomly select a word from the dictionary and express it in any way you choose” was the card I pulled from my Arty Farty Creativity Prompts Deck. The random word generator threw up “tassel”—an interesting word and no mistake, it conjured up images of brash burlesque confidence, seductive teasing and titillation, ripe with imagery no…
Read MoreHope Springs Eternal
It was a curious juxtaposition. It was late April, the height of the Coronavirus outbreak in the Boston area where I live. The news was dreadful daily, increasing numbers of cases, hospitalizations, deaths. But all around, spring was blooming like never before. My 91-year-old mom remarked on it daily, never having seen this season with…
Read MoreMy Kind of Isolation
The lockdown has been especially hard for me. A motion designer, I was easily able to transition to working from home and sharing work via the cloud. But part of me was always in the clouds–the real ones. Next to my family, I live for paragliding–the incredible exhilaration of taking flight with my own “wings,”…
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