@rosemarya The life of an artist who works alone at home is about the same with or without stay at home orders and a pandemic. What is different is all of the outside connections like shows that were canceled or ended early because of business closures, and I'm not able to go to a group artist model session at a friend's studio because we would gather around one model and put our easels right next to each other. Artists are affected a lot when there is no physical show and the public cannot attend opening parties. Some places are now going ahead with shows, and I just shipped a couple paintings out, but all the shows I've been in this year have been affected with limited access for people to see the shows.

My inspiration usually comes from something I experience, and I was out on a horse trail riding trip and taking photos and video and got hurt a month ago, so my attention lately has been toward healing a broken ankle and I haven't been able to paint. I just returned to Mayo for a follow up with my surgeon and got the first splint/cast removed and now have a fiberglass cast. I picked green because I wanted to paste horse pictures on it when I got home. The nurses came back with some printed horse pictures that I cut out and we pasted on as they cast my ankle. That was after we talked about horses and she showed me pictures of her paint horse on her phone. I am going to need to work on this cast some more and put my own horse on it too. Having a cast is kind of a love/hate relationship, so fun pictures should help. I did get a lot of attention as I passed others at Mayo for the horse pictures on my cast. That is art for healing literally....

I also completed editing a video of me painting the portrait for my spine surgeon that shows almost the entire process of completing the painting. It was recorded in real time, but in editing , I cut and spliced to remove all the time when my brush was not moving, and sped it up about ten times. It is a time lapse set to music that is 39 minutes long. I have been inspired by my own healing through art and it gave me a new purpose to my work. I'm working on a new project with that in mind to tell art inspired stories. Personally, the challenges I have faced in my medical issues have inspired me to use my art creatively toward healing and to want to teach others ways to do this for themselves through creativity.