I first heard about the Bay Area six-county lockdown in March of 2020 while skiing at Alta. My husband is an exec at the City of San Francisco. To prepare, he was informed of it the week before the public announcement March 12.
Somehow, I felt unable and uninterested in painting during that time. Intellectually, the driving need for expression would have been the obvious reaction but I lacked in creative energy. Instead, I gingerly triaged. Working at a London-based EdTech company, the demand for our digital textbooks skyrocketed with universities being forced to go online. I immediately began working at 6 AM daily (2 PM London time). There was no gym open to visit early in the morning. I signed up for a 6-week Iyengar Yoga virtual retreat. Work, planning a week of groceries, cooking work, yoga, online workouts, walks, zoom and outdoor gatherings became the routine.
More disruption by choice in January 2021 ensued when we moved to take advantage of our home’s frothy price and downsize though with the benefit of a nicer neighborhood. There was no longer room for my studio nor my large canvases. Through my network, a studio space appeared at Mark Drive Studios in San Rafael just 20 minutes from home. The first space I rented was too small. It barely housed my paintings and left no room to work. How had I amassed so much art and misjudged? With all of the pandemic transition, a long-time sculptor tenant realized he could work in his kitchen. His space of 500 square feet became available – with better light! I was able and ready to work again in fall 2021, a year and a half after the initial pandemic lockdown.
I was inspired to create a new series influenced by the loss and upheaval of the prior year and a half. I bought new canvases from two feet to five feet. I created value maps or sketches and chose the format for each composition. This new series is of abstract landscapes like my prior work, but with less linearity and clarity of form. They are a balance between renderings of subject matter and abstraction through the application of paint. This work and its new style are still in progress with three of six pieces complete as we move from pandemic to endemic with disruption and uncertainty the new norm. These evolving circumstances continue to influence this first pandemic series.