Quarantine Quilt: A Journal, A Meditation

By Kathleen McLean / April 23, 2021

On March 8, 2020, the cruise ship Grand Princess was headed toward the Port of Oakland, California, six miles from my home. Passengers on board the ship were suffering from a strange new Corona virus that seemed to be spreading like wildfire. On March 9, passengers infected with the virus were allowed to leave the…

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Creating Marking Lives COVID-19

By Elizabeth Awalt / March 7, 2021

In December 2020, after nine months of COVID-19 deaths, I woke to the unsettling statistic that 270,000 people in the U.S. had died. The lives lost were simply numbers on the front page. The virus was impossible to ignore, but at the same time, somehow unmarked. I’m an artist who has been painting for forty…

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My Pandemic Art Journey

By Maria Poroy / February 25, 2021

In mid-March, we began to shelter in place, not knowing what to expect and most certainly not expecting the lockdown to last this long. When faced with uncertainty, I did as you’d expect and froze up like a deer in the headlights. Then I began to Marie Kondo my sock drawer, moving on to a…

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From the Heart

By Maria Poroy / February 13, 2021

I started the heart series before the pandemic with no goal other than making something beautiful and decorative. The series was an experiment in form and color. But as the pandemic began, the hearts took on new meaning.  They became a conduit for expressing my own inner turmoils. And they became a way of connecting…

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Spiraling: Life in a Pandemic

By Tonya Brami / February 11, 2021

So many thoughts and emotions around COVID-19.  I had to paint it out—this emotional tempest in my mind. Our lives literally spiraling out of our control, our privileged lives restricted.     The spiral, bottom left, literally 2020 spiraling out of control. Collaged fragments of topographic maps from places we didn’t travel. A stylized COVID…

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Through Coke-bottle Glasses

By Steven Maier, aka "Sonny Pops" / February 8, 2021

Two weeks before the pandemic I had a two-week show of my “Sonny Pops” paintings at Luxury Row in Waikiki. I am thankful that we didn’t schedule it for March as we had originally planned. No one expected the viral time warp that oozed into our lives. We still struggle to wake up from this…

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Limbs

By Nakia Young / February 5, 2021

“Limbs” is a series created during the pandemic year of 2020 that I have continued into 2021 to express my lingering questions about a new beginning. Many times, I have said to myself, “When will this pandemic be over? Will it really be over even when we can be around others with no mask and…

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CHAOS

By Kim Craig / January 16, 2021

I started this painting on January 6, 2021, a day when the US registered nearly 4,000 Covid-19 deaths and political violence at the US capitol shook the nation. On that day, when an unruly mob breached and desecrated the capitol, much more than bricks and mortar were tested as we attempted to make sense of…

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Tensions

By Kim Craig / December 27, 2020

Archeologists often assemble ancient stones to tell a story of a civilization past. What will they tell of our empire? Will there be anything left to piece together? I like to think about the rise and fall of ancient societies. What secrets can we learn from the ruins of old cities? In the past, pandemics…

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Methodological Irrationality

By Benjamin Arizmendi / December 14, 2020

The role of science in the pandemic has been a good context for reflecting on and articulating my artistic practice. I believe abstract artists have a duty to develop aesthetic methods for understanding the human spirit. And I believe we must use art to deconstruct ourselves outside the framework of scientific enlightenment and reason.  Reason is…

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