Encouraged by The Jealous Curator suggesting a self-imposed thirty days of making art under the hashtag #30dayartquarantine, I set out to do the one thing I know how to do when the rest of my world is on fire — make art.
Like most of my creative evolutions, there are a handful of executions before the a-ha. This has happened for each of my 100 Day projects, usually surprising me after roughly six weeks of work. This time took less time, but was no less insightful.
These images aren’t in chronological progression. The first three of the thirty images were collages, an easy go-to particularly when there is no shortage of magazines in my possession. You can’t say you can’t get started when you’re tripping over the supplies.
I shifted on day four, reaching out to my favorite space oddity, asking her if I could repurpose a shoot we did as an ode to Bowie for this project. Sarah was stunning when she was cradling the globe for my camera three years ago, and yet she’s somehow even more perfect transitioning from Major Tom to Mother Earth. In the same vein of artistic repurpose, my previous homage to Yayoi seemed hauntingly lovely with a mask.
And then it hit. I was reading one of my childhood favorites to my children at bedtime. It had been a long day. They’ve all been long days. We read the story and talked about what tomorrow would be like — more of the same. And it would probably be more of the same for a long time. And that felt really strange.
It got me thinking… what if this was all my children knew? What if their children’s bedtime stories had characters wearing masks, because that’s what life continued to be like indefinitely? What if the fairy tales they read when they’re tucking in their littles reflect social distancing and blue-covered smiles because that’s the world in which they’ll have to raise their children? I took the story I read that evening, and added a covid_19 filter. And continued to do so for the two weeks that followed.
No Fighting, No Biting! By Else Holmelund Minarik, Illustrated by Maurice Sendak.
What began as a shift from children’s books to family movies gave way to pulling from pop culture icons. The evolution meant I was leaving the storybook concept, but I welcomed the change. This time has been an odd mix of trying to both establish routine and reject it.
Below: The three collages that initiated the project and the handful of other activities that rounded out the 30.
