Distanced

Distanced

12x16 oil on panel

Coronavirus series

What is it like to be young and have no playmates, no time at a park or school? Though social distancing is hard for everyone, children especially suffer and are affected both psychologically and developmentally by the isolation.

Routines, social interactions and friendships are some of the most important factors of a child’s psychological development. Much of early learning comes from watching, listening and mimicking others. Similarly, the development of co-ordination and physical skill takes trial, error and practice. In quarantine social and physical activity is in large part being replaced with more passive screen time. Psychological, social and physical mastery and confidence are not being built while kids are watching life rather than participating in it.

How will today’s change in the traditional childhood forms of stimulation, challenge and social contact effect the overall development of this generation? Running, climbing, singing, swinging and goofing around with other kids isn’t just fun, it’s important!

 

Gratitude

Gratitude

12x16 oil on panel

coronavirus series

We tend to focus on things that worry us or need changing. By giving attention to problems we can decide how best to make improvements. However sometimes this drive to root out problems makes us less aware of what is good or even great in our lives and in the world.

In the midst of the fearful rollercoaster ride that the pandemic has forced the whole world on we have seen kindness, selflessness and caring on levels that bring me to tears.  When quarantine orders drove most people home, there were legions of “essential workers” who ensured that we had the care, supplies and services we needed. Healthcare professionals, grocery, retail and food service workers, janitors and maids, transportation workers, gas station attendants and mechanics, postal employees, delivery drivers, grocery store employees and countless more put themselves at risk by interacting with large numbers of people daily. Essential workers, often not granted the privilege to isolate, made social distancing possible for the majority.

Expressions of gratitude bubbled up around the globe. Red Cross volunteers picked thousands of flowers to give to healthcare workers in Italy, The US Air Force Thunderbirds conducted flyovers in many US cities, the statue of Christ the Redeemer who overlooks Rio de Janeiro was illuminated with a stethoscope draped around his neck, and the Eiffel Tower bore “MERCI” in lights while Michelin starred chefs made meals for employees of Parisian hospitals. 

Between 6:00 and 7:00 PM, the most common period for a change of shifts, New York City rang with applause as people opened their windows, stepped onto balconies or fire escapes and clapped, banged pots and pans and chanted their thanks. People in Italy, India and Spain offered similar tributes.

Unable to directly thank all those willing to sacrifice their own safety and well being in this global crisis, people found other ways to express themselves. Home made signs appeared in windows and on lawns, chalk spelled out thanks on sidewalks, and chain link fences became galleries of grateful messages.  Throughout the country and around the world groups of people stood on random corners or in parks and simply held a message of appreciation and gratitude over their head.

Yup, I’m crying again. 

The Staff of Life

The Staff of Life

12x16 oil on panel

A few weeks into quarantine when the days had begun to feel indistinguishable people began to bake. Social media began to look like the window of a giant bakery - full of muffins, scones, banana bread and lots of sourdough. 

The baking section of markets emptied just after the paper goods aisle emptied of toilet tissue. Those packets of yeast that sat undisturbed on the top shelf since your grandmother’s time became a hot commodity. Flour mills couldn’t keep up with the demand. 

Yes, everyone was trapped at home and had nothing but time on their hands, and yes, every trip out the door was viewed as a health risk, but really, what was going on?

Social scientists say that baking offers comfort and is nurturing of others. The sudden passion for kneading grew out of a survival instinct not only to feed but to control. We were realizing that our entire world could be tipped over by a tiny virus and that we weren’t the masters of all we see after all. But if we kept our dough warm and timed the rise, punched it down and let it rise again we could create an ancient food considered essential.

Home cooking had become a bit of a rarity in the last decade as markets sold more prepared food and dinner could easily be delivered. We spent lots of time and money enjoying more and more elaborate food while eating out. When all restaurants closed what we could produce in our kitchens was all there was. The impulse to do it well, and go deeper than ever before is so sweet. I mean if you can create the staff of life in your own kitchen, isn’t that the perfect way to push back a pandemic?

You’ve just got to love the resilient nature of the human spirit! 

Assault Rifles in the Capitol

                                                    Assault Rifles in the Capitol

In late April governor Gretchen Whitmer requested that Michigan’s lawmakers consider extending the stay at home orders. A crowd of protesters soon gathered at the state capitol brandishing swastikas, confederate flags, nooses and some came bearing arms. Automatic rifles to be exact.

It is legal to openly carry firearms in Michigan and they were allowed to enter the capitol building. When they were bared from entering the chamber where the debate was taking place, they transformed the elegant rotunda of the Senate visitors gallery into a snipers nest.

Furious about the governor’s proactive attempt to shelter the citizens of her state from the most fierce virus to move through humanity in a century, this group saw fit to threaten elected officials with assault rifles and hand guns. 

This painting was very hard to complete because the image upsets me so deeply.

Portrait of a Virus

 

Portrait of a Virus

8x10, oil on panel

coronavirus series

How often has everyone known what a specific virus looks like? 

Closed in our homes and staying abreast of the rapidly changing story of the pandemic, we became well acquainted with the model of the virus that was upending our lives. 

Keep Out

 

Keep Out

16x12 oil on panel

Parks were reopened with the realization that fresh air and exercise are fundamental to good physical and mental health, but playgrounds or “tot lots” have remained closed. Who needs sunshine, fresh air and movement more than our kids? Towns, cities and states have rightly agreed that kids under 6 don’t keep masks on and have no concept of social distancing.  Children touch their face often and surface transmission is a concern on playgrounds where it is difficult to clean and disinfect all surfaces. 

Playgrounds are often crowded with not only children, but their parents, grandparents and caretakers too. With schools and daycare facilities closed playgrounds could become more crowded than ever. But what do parents do parents do to fill all the hours, keep kids stimulated and burn off some of that youthful energy that simply needs to be released? 

The vision of closed play areas reminds me of all the limitations we currently face that lead to quiet losses. Through enjoying ourselves in the company of one another we feel whole, we grow, we feel joy. Without that experience what happens, especially to young children? Not only are they being kept from the simple pleasure of one another, they are not challenging themselves to climb higher, slide faster or learning how to get yourself as close to the sky as possible on a swing. 

What could be more sad that a fenced off playground?  

18 Wheeled Morgues

 

18 Wheeled Morgues

18x12 oil on Panel

The death rate in New York City overwhelmed its system for burying the dead. Someone in 

the city died every 2 minutes, four times the normal death rate. Hospital morgues, funeral homes and cemeteries overflowed and backed up. Hospitals ran out of body bags, military teams were called in to assist in mortuary work, and funeral homes were working around 

the clock. One funeral director said “the death rate is so high, there’s no way we can 

bury or cremate them fast enough.”

Refrigerated trucks were parked behind hospitals to serve as makeshift mobile morgues. Stacked on quickly built shelves, each truck could hold 36 bodies and store them until 

funeral homes could accommodate them. After dying without family or friends, the favorite aunt, the checker at the market, the teacher who had inspired kids year after year, 

the beloved spouse were stored in body bags in 18 wheelers.

Playing to an Empty House

Playing to an Empty House
16x12 oil on panel

From road house to grand auditorium the sharing of music stopped. The uniquely human experience of coming together to enjoy live music was prohibited. Fleets of musicians have no income, musical institutions can’t sustain their losses and there is a creeping realization of how long this dark period may last. Originally thought of as a mere intermission in an ancient tradition it now appears that gathering for a musical experience may change forever.

Arias sung from balconies, orchestral pieces delivered by zoom and performances in darkened concert halls are sweetly tragic. Musicians need to play and people want the emotional experience that only music can deliver, but performance is interactive, among the artists and between musicians and their audience. The communion we feel when sharing

live music simply doesn’t survive social distancing.

Rewilding

Rewilding

20x16, oil on panel

Buffalo walked the empty highway in New Deli, wild boar roamed the deserted streets of Italian towns and wild turkeys strutted around Harvard Yard. The animals, always there, were free to reclaim their territory unabashedly. Isolated in our homes, these photos dredged up Hollywood versions of a post apocalyptic planet.

This scene was captured by my son who had ridden his bike across an absolutely empty Golden Gate Bridge. The usual line of cars climbing Muir Headlands was missing as were the knots of traffic near viewpoints. In the quiet a coyote stood squarely and met his gaze.

On a subsequent ride a bobcat, notoriously shy, trotted by him with a squirrel in its mouth and never acknowledged having human company.

Night Shift

Night Shift

coronavirus series

16x12 oil on panel

Public spaces, now empty, were disinfected at night with fogging machines. The other worldly scenes this gave rise to made me wonder how far into Dante's circles of hell we had ventured.

Intensive Care

Intensive Care

16x12 oil on panel

It’s a uniquely wonderful person who runs into a burning building to help others out or walks into a ward of infectious patients to try to help them through their illness. In both cases the individual knowingly risks their own well being for the sake of another. Usually someone they’ve never met and will probably never see again. Our communal safely rests on these people. They are the fibers of the safety net that catches us when disaster strikes.

When the virus landed hard in New York City and Intensive Care Units were at capacity there was a shortage of Personal Protective Equipment. This meant that doctors, nurses and medical technicians were being placed at risk while assisting the ill.

I again found myself asking, how could this be in a country that has prided itself for its readiness to produce and deliver anything the marketplace needed nearly instantaneously? Aren’t medical supplies foundational to disaster planning? 

I was struck by how uncomfortable the needed protective gear is that medical professionals were fighting for. Layers of nonporous materials, awkward disposable outer layers and face, hair and eye protection. Have you ever tried to breathe through an N95 mask? Every breath is a struggle. 

These people are running into the fire for our sake. They bring years of education and training into one grey room after another to do their best to heal and when they can’t they hold the hands of our friends and family as they pass away. The least we can do is provide the medical community with everything we possibly can to keep them safe. 

Sorry, We're Closed

Sorry, We're Closed

Coronavirus series

16x12 oil on panel

As the stay-at-home orders began to reshape our lives, our eyes moved from the large public spaces that were empty to the more intimate gathering places that had been ordered to close. Restaurants, where we go for conversation and community as much as for food were shuttered. First the idea that lunch with a friend or a casual cup of coffee was not possible was a shock, then the realization of the depth of our troubles crystallized seeing all the "Closed" signs. Dread of the economic fallout took hold. Not only were individual workers doing without needed income, but how many businesses could survive being shut down for a couple of weeks? As weeks turned into months we knew that a second disaster was taking place all around us. All those closed doors indicated another form of silent suffering that would take an enormous toll in a whole different way.

 

Helping From Home

Helping From Home

16x12 oil on panel

As the stay at home orders were issued across the country it was stated that our rare trips out would require a mask. The shortage of personal protective equipment immediately became so severe that those whose lives depended on it, health care workers and first responders, were going without. Workers in essential services from grocery store employees to postal workers also needed to wear masks every day and they were in scarce supply. 

Brigades of women pulled out their long forgotten sewing machines, dusted them off and got to work. Patterns were shared and how-to videos sprung to life. Heroines like Stephanie Oddo, who organized the Healthcare Mask Collaborative, delivered donated fabric and elastic to a wide circle of people who produced thousands of masks at home and delivered them to medical facilities and military groups. 

The juxtaposition of sitting at a sunny table in a quiet house and making masks in the hopes of saving the lives of people on the front lines of a pandemic was startling.  I thought of World War II volunteers who helped hospitals suffering from severe shortages, collected scrap metal for reuse and planted Victory Gardens to supplement food rationing. But the United States had built the most stunning consumer society the world had ever seen since that time. We now face overwhelming choices and companies promising to goods faster and cheaper. 

How could this have happened? 

Silent City

Silent City

Coronavirus series

20x16 oil on panel

The speed with which cities shut down in quarantine was shocking. It went from a novel event that a few countries were going through to a sight seen around the world, creating scenes that were utterly unique and haunting.

This enormous intersection, built to organize a huge volume of traffic sits empty. Numerous lanes for cars, trucks and bikes are still and the two lone pedestrians seem to emphasize how tiny each individual is in the complex systems we've built. Looking at the scenes of shuttered businesses and empty streets it sinks in that it's going to take a while to build back from the overall silence the pandemic imposed on the world. 

20 Seconds

20 Seconds
16x20 oil on panel

Coronavirus series

As the pandemic jumped from continent to continent governments around the world told their citizens to wash their hands frequently for at least 20 seconds. Those of us in the west were told that was equivalent to singing the Happy Birthday song twice. We saw videos of how to clean between the fingers, wash the thumb and up and around the wrists. Videos showed police in India washing their hands while doing a dance routine to a Bollywood soundtrack and we saw photos of chaffed red hands suffering from constant scrubbing.

The fact that simple soap and water is our best preventative measure is wondrous in its simplicity and at the same time it's deeply troubling that it is all we have.

Coronavirus Series, Masked

Hello again!

I haven't shared any of my work for over a year. I've been painting a lot, but the series was about an emotional earthquake in my life, and I considered my paintings to be more therapy than anything else. I focused on recording my feelings in a visual way which took me in a different direction with my painting. The pieces were raw and so was I, so I kept them to myself sharing only with a handful of  brave friends.

Who knew that I was training for recording the images of a world wide pandemic? I have in the past month begun a series of the startling and quickly changing images that the coronavirus has brought.

Masked

16x20, oil on panel

This is the first in my Coronavirus series. I saw this man in a busy urban setting and was rocked that someone in a city in our county felt the need to wear a mask. By the time I was half way through the piece the person that stood out on a street was the one NOT wearing a mask. My head spun. 

The images have been coming so fast that I can't keep up. I planned to do an elbow bump painting, but within a week we weren't getting within six feet of one another and we were pulling on gloves to pick up things that others had possibly touched. 

My files are full of ideas and I'm painting virtually all the time. There are currently 3 finished pieces and 3 under way. I will share once a week or so. 

Thanks for checking back in with me. Let's all be helpful, kind and careful with one another. It's hard to understand what others are going through, now more than ever.