post-Pandemic

 It is just three months past the anniversary of the time when the world changed forever. At that time, we hoarded toilet paper, sewed masks, brewed hand sanitizers, and wondered if we would survive. At least the liberals did, whereas the others expected the problem to pass after they drank bleach and went to large gatherings in unventilated buildings. The Ides of March were upon us and we hid, hunkered down, and found or lost each other.

The year 2020 marked the twentieth anniversary of the advent of my business, In January, I closed it without fanfare or announcement. I just stopped.  I was done. I had been yearning to try a new road for awhile, never thinking it would be virtual and in lockdown.

It has been an interesting year if you presume doom, terror, chaos, and the madness of power gone awry as interesting. I lost myself in art, the doing of it. Picking up from where I left off so long ago fresh out of art school then slammed with a cross hemisphere relocation, a seriously ill child, and a divorce, pursuing a career in art seemed unattainable, unrealistic and a lot of other "un's."   

In early 2020, I gathered up those dropped threads of life and started to paint and draw. I learned things had changed from 40 years ago in art school in Europe. New pigments, papers, materials, and perspectives. Since I had never learned watercolor, being a figurative oil painter, I delved into puddling water on paper. Teachers were plentiful on Zoom and global thanks to the pandemic. I averaged 2-3 demos/classes/workshops per week for a year. I joined Instagram, and my granddaughter's cat followed me. I posted my art to the grand exaltations of friends and family...mostly family. I bought a lot of art supplies helping keep Lenz open, an institution in art stores - the Sennelier of Santa Cruz.

The vaccine was announced just when it was getting really grim on the 3rd or 4th surge, and  Trump lost the election, regardless of his whinging. The world seemed to turn a corner except for a failed violent overthrow of our government. We are now working hard pretending to be the old normal but after the pandemic, and Black Lives Matter, we know it is all changed now. It has to change.  Good will come of all this, I just know it.