The Writer

We're nearing the end of the seventh week of shelter in place. A lot of people are approaching this as a time of contemplation, of pausing from the hyper busyness of the past couple of years. I'm pausing and reflecting in my own achievement-oriented way by writing a memoir. It's not something I'd want anyone else to read, but rather it's an exercise in remembering. Does my life have a meaningful narrative? What relationships contributed to the person I am now? What visual experiences led me to be an artist in a seemingly non-visual family? How much can I remember, and if I write it down, can I remember more? As a lover of color and form, can I be a lover of words, too?

Every morning I sit down to write for about four hours. As I progress through the decades, I toss old gilt diaries into the trash. When I leave my computer, my eyes won't focus on distance, and it's hard to readjust to face masks, lines at grocery stores, and unemployed friends. How the world has changed since 1963, since 2019! I rediscover my current self and reaclimate to the world I live in now by going to the studio and painting for a few hours in the afternoon.

Are you writing during this time? Would you like to? Let me know!

Floating #2

On Thursday evening, I felt so claustrophobic. I just wanted to walk on a beach. Ed and I jumped in the car and drove across the Richmond/San Rafael bridge and down highway 101 to the exit for the Marine Headlands. Everything was blocked. Back in the car, we drove across the Golden Gate and into San Francisco. So many apartments were dark, with almost no traffic on the streets. We went for a walk at Fort Mason; Alcatraz seemed close enough to touch. We drove home across one more bridge.

Now when I walk the Berkeley Marina, San Francisco shimmers inaccessible across the water.

What else is there to do during 2 months of sheltering in place? Read old high school diaries, of course! Which leads to looking up old boyfriends on Facebook. I found Sid, the dispenser of my fist kiss. It made me so happy to see him on my screen, big white beard, big belly, American flag T-shirt, still in the arms of the woman he married right after her high school graduation.

Another Artist in the Family

 My daughter is working from home right now, but, as a receptionist, she has a lot of down time. She has filled that time with making masks, 13-15 a week that she shares with family and friends and front line workers. Now she's branching out into making art masks....

Day 38 of Shelter in Place

I texted a friend yesterday. "I am weary of this..."
She responded, "If you approach each day as if it's the one and only day of quarantine, it keeps the day fresh...."

Quarantine

A friend of mine, Leah Korican, is a poet and artist, and she wrote the following poem. Part of it refers to her teaching art to kids on-line during the shelter in place.

Quarantine

Is it the beginning of the end
or the end of the beginning?
I am bundled in my bunker,
you are spinning on the screen
and you are mute
most of the time. I try to teach you
and sometimes you vanish
or type 25 emojis of a heart eye face
and a brown dog and a yellow flower
or show me a crooked drawing
of Garfield on lined paper.

The worriers are worrying overtime.
The stoners get high before noon
The bakers bought all the flour
and yeast and fill the fridge
I know there are others out
there suffering in the headlines but
Everyone I know is fine but not fine
Everyone I know is waiting it out
Everyone I know is getting a little antsy
and only occasionally cryong

Spring keeps on coming
the birds seem more plentiful
and their song is so lovely
but still somehow annoyingly repetitive
the same three notes
I'm grateful I'm the lucky one
Twitter keeps me scrolling
my eye twitching
in rhythm with the outrage

of what was said and I should
just log off now, log off NOW
and someone tweets it's time for the artists
to create a new world in the forty days
and forty nights-
during the flood
the two by two animals

Threshold

We're one month into the Shelter in Place. Face masks and disposable gloves have become fashion basics. Zoom gatherings have become routine, but I still can't avoid obsessing about how old I look on the screen. I've gone through my books, sorted my art packing materials, and planted an amazing vegetable garden. Now that  my art friends and I  can flirt with the idea that perhaps we won't die of COVID 19, we're talking about what will become of the arts, and how do we prepare for the new normal?
When the quarantine is lifted, I want every painting in my racks to be a jewel. Our world will need beauty and truth more than ever. If I run out of canvases, it's time to pull out old friends (paintings) from my work space and say goodbye and paint over them.
My galleries are finding new solutions for reaching audiences. Shoh Gallery is hosting an on-line show called How to Breathe. You can see the work at https://www.shohgallery.com/. The Jennifer Perlmutter Gallery is hosting Friday night Zoom sessions. For more info, go to https://jenniferperlmuttergallery.com/2020/02/first-fridays-in-lafayette/

Woman with Oar

This painting drove me crazy. The sky came very quickly, but then what? A girl on a bicycle? A couple hugging? I must've painted half a dozen variations. But then when I was lying awake, worrying about the virus and our collapsing economy, I realized there had to be water, a destination, hope.
Someday we will go to the ocean. Someday we will have friends over for a big pot of soup. Someday we will go hear a concert, see a movie in a theater, linger in a bookstore, I hope....

Glad Streams

The week before the shelter in place order, Ed and I went to Chico and Ashland to see family. We went on a walk in Bidwell Park on a gray Sunday morning, and I noticed how the black water had these white stones showing through. When we got home, this painting happened almost spontaneously on the canvas.
On good days during the epidemic, I feel like this, very quiet and peaceful, but I still have my cold feet moments.

A Poignant Loss

Sheltering in place has its appeal for an introvert like me, but it has its losses as well.
My 100 year old house has a full basement where I paint, and for over a year I've been sharing this space with Michelle Fillmore, a very gifted artist. We'll put a speaker in the doorway between our studios and listen to Ear Hustle podcasts or get angry at the news together. Sometimes when I'm struggling with creative block, I'll hear a long groan come from Michelle, and I'll know she's feeling the same. Sometimes she'll flop down in the recliner by my easel, and we'll talk about the business of art. She has really become a member of the family, especially when she got meningitis and we raced her to the hospital in the middle of the night. She recently had her first solo show at Shoh Gallery which was very exciting.
Michelle's side gig is working at Trader Joe's, and since Ed and I are over 60, I had to tell her she couldn't paint here during the pandemic. That was hard! When I helped her carry her paints to her car, I told her, "I'm looking forward to the day when you can bring your supplies back." I hope that day comes soon, Michelle!

Painting Loss and Hope

In dark times, do you paint loss or hope? As I did this painting of people together for a meal, I thought of our friends who usually gather around our table every week. It's hard to imagine them at my door again, hugging and laughing. That will be wonderful. In painting Bear Mountain, I claim hope.

But I must also name my present reality. I have my family with me, but I feel cut off from so many friends who are completely alone in small New York apartments and large empty Oakland homes. I also feel helpless. I usually take pride in getting up early and crossing things off my lists. Now it's a time of waiting, reading, praying, being. I watch the oars bob and float in the water.

Corona Virus Art Residency

When our governor announced the Shelter in Place order for the Bay Area on March 16, I told my husband, "It's like our Alaskan art residency without the bears."(See the previous blog posts.) We have a favorite pre-dawn hike in Tilden Park that is as steep and as beautiful as the walk to the blue bridge that we would do every morning at Alderworks, I have as much focused time in the studio, and contact with friends is limited to screens. I daily feel a fresh clarity--the excitement of a new image on a large canvas, the smell of banana bread baking, the beauty of an empty beach after dark.

But I have to acknowledge that we still have half of our income when many of our friends have none, we are healthy when thousands are struggling to breathe, and I share a home with three people I love while others are alone or worse.

My prayers are for health, safety, employment, and deep connections for all of us as we go through a Lent like no other.