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Making Art In A Quarantine

Blogs: #4 of 16

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We are currently experiencing a pandemic, the likes of which has not been seen since 1918's Spanish Flu. Since my husband and I are in a high risk group (old) we are doing our best to lay as low as we can and take each day as it comes. While we aren't actually quarantined, at least not yet, the "government" and medical experts say we should be staying home unless 100% necessary to venture out. For the most part, we do just that. We go to the grocery store when we must, where the shelves are often bare (toilet paper, for some reason, is what has been the scarcest) or to the pharmacy to get needed medicines. We take walks around the area, which is thinly populated and largely wooded. We get fresh air and sunshine and don't really see anyone else. We're glued to the television and internet for news and some form of diversion when the news becomes too much to hear. And then... there is art...

It has taken me a while to actually start making art as we shelter in place. I just wasn't feeling it, and as I heard of my artist friends busily at work, I began to feel a good deal of guilt for not doing the same. I made one, and a good one at that. I started another and while it started out OK, I quickly discovered it was not at all what I wanted to be doing and it felt like a chore. Now on my third attempt, and I already like it, though I've done little more than block it in. I'm feeling this one. I like the place it is taking me and I love the place it IS. I have been literally dreaming in vivid detail of the most breathtaking panoramas, and in the dreams all I want to do is paint them, but I can't seem to find my paint or my brushes, nor even a camera to perhaps try to capture it. I feel this is all caused by my trepidation around the world's situation and my need to see beyond it, to what degree I can, to the beauty that is still so bountiful. I'm longing to be in those places that have always so inspired my creativity, but that all seem so very out of reach right now.

And so, we ride it out, hoping that we and our friends and loved ones come out the other side of this awful disease pandemic, this strain of corona virus that is so deadly, and that it will leave us relatively unscathed.