@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.

Jump to this post