Posts Tagged ‘2020’
Frontliner Paints Through COVID-19
In late Februrary, health care workers and lay people alike heard the first inklings of the presence of the COVID-19 virus on the shores of the continental US. Physician groups across social media were sounding the alarm and posting photos of their tired, exhausted faces in states like Washington and Oregon. Affected physicians were providing…
Read MoreLight in the Dark
I ran a small art gallery and studio for eleven years but was forced to close when the pandemic hit. Then, as the days shortened and I dreaded the coming of winter and being stuck indoors, I started sketching outside more. It was revelatory! I felt such a renewed and powerful connection to nature that…
Read MoreOn the Edge of Tomorrow
Hurtling towards the future, a new day, a new year filled with hope and light in 2021. To all the readers, artists, contributors of The Pandemic Lens, I wish you a safe, happy, and healthy New Year ahead! Copyright © 2021 Steven Edson Steve EdsonThe camera works to document the external, but more…
Read MoreSeeds for a Brighter Tomorrow
I can’t think of a more fitting symbol for hope in the new year than milkweed seeds. Each seed is poised to be carried aloft by the wind, harboring potential for new growth wherever it lands. Milkweed plants uniquely nourish caterpillars of Monarch butterflies, creatures of beauty and brilliant examples of the interconnectedness within native…
Read MoreThe Days Gone, the Lives Lost
When I was a teenager, I had a poster of Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper on their Harleys from the movie, Easy Rider, taped to my bedroom wall. It was the early 1970s, and I lived in a town of one thousand people in rural southeastern Illinois where conservative values held sway. Those values left…
Read MoreMixed Blessings and Hidden Gifts
It’s New Year, a traditional time for review and reassessment for many of us, and I for one am considering the ways in which this new year needs to be remodelled, not so much seeking a return to normal, more about establishing a new normal in light of the emotional impact of the past year.…
Read MoreAeeeeoooow!
On October 6, 2020, the Swedish Academy announced the year’s Nobel prizes in Physics and, two days later, in Literature. The selection committees may as well have collaborated, so tuned were they to the pulse of a uniquely awful year. Louise Glück, poet of “isolation, betrayal . . . and death” (NYT 10/8/2020), won for…
Read MoreAs 2020 Leaves
As we say goodbye to 2020, we reflect on all we have lost and all we still hope for. I remembered this painting and felt it captured my thoughts. Like this willow, several of the trees I’ve painted over the years no longer exist. For a while, I thought perhaps I wielded the brush of…
Read MoreBeginning of a 2020 Christmas Letter
(Ed note: This essay was the first part of a letter sent by family friend David Norcross. It was so insightful and entertaining that we asked David’s permission to reprint it on the Lens. Thank you David!) Christmas 2020 and Other End of Year Musings “And every picture shows a perfect family…” No one…
Read MoreFarewell 2020
A few weeks ago—just after Thanksgiving—I received an unexpected package in the mail from artist/curator Crystalle Lacouture. Contained within was a limited run wood-block print, a directive, and a booklet of matches, all related to a timely project—#farewellgoodbye2020. The message of the letter, which you can read at the link below, was essentially this: 2020…
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