Art in Challenging Times

“Connection”, 11 x 14″ acrylic on panel

3-25-2020

Here in Santa Fe people are urged to work from home, stay home, no more gallery visits or trips to the art store for supplies. An enemy called Corona virus attempts to place the world under siege.

 “Connection” was the word prompt given to our art group a few weeks before the self-quarantine became a reality. “Create an image to interpret this word,” came the directive, and so we did. Little did we know how timely this word would become.

I painted a memory of my grandparent’s Italian neighborhood in Chicago where we visited in summer during the 1950s as children. The town homes and apartments were built close together, and laundry was hung on shared lines between the homes, and moved with a pulley system. I was only 8 years old, completely fascinated by this. People sat on front porches and called out to their neighbors. Some older folks still spoke only Italian, but there were plenty of people who could translate. To my siblings and I from a suburb of Denver, Colorado, Grandma’s home was like a different country, and magical.

Grandma called Italy “the old country”, and today the place of her parents’ birth is trying to cope and heal from the devastating effects of this horrid Corona virus. On the Internet we have seen Italians confined to their apartments, singing songs together from their windows to connect with each other. People everywhere need each other, and so we reach out in song, in shared languages, in clotheslines.

Art provides a way to heal from our shock and disorientation. Makers continue to create, and then share their images around the world. Art is a way of reaching out… it’s another kind of song, another poem, an invitation to a calmer place. A thoughtful place.

Art can open an inroad to the soul of a person, then to another, and so on. These inroads can be connected when art builds the bridge. Art says, “Look! Tell me what you see, what you are feeling.” Taking the time as life slows down, we begin to respond, and suddenly we discover kindred spirits around us.

“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”

– Lucy Maud Montgomery