Art Heals: Housecleaning

Today we learned of ever lengthening days of confinement, and stay-at-home orders that carry a $5,000 fine for violators.  For most of us, the new rules really won’t change anything we are already doing but the language of fines and punishments increases anxiety even among the most law-abiding types among us.
For me, the frustration lies in a feeling of lack of control over my environment, my choices, my life.  Have any of you ever experienced the feeling, when you found yourself on a high rooftop, that you suddenly felt an urge to jump?  Of course, you wouldn’t do it, but for a fleeting second, the urge is there, just because you can’t.
I think that is how many of us feel right now, wanting to go places and do things just because we can’t, just to exert some control.

So for me, I clean.  My house (when I had one) was never cleaner than during the days after 9/11.  I was on the bathroom floor with a toothbrush (great for grout!). The inside of my refrigerator was so organized it looked curated.
This morning the urge took over again.  The entire content of my closet is now piled on my bed, vacuum and dusters at the ready, keep or toss bins on the floor (actually I rarely toss, but it makes me feel good to think I might.) Later I will move on to the pantry and the kitchen junk drawer (admit it, we all have one.)  My husband has locked me out of the guest room/office where he works. I have learned after 48 years that I have no control over HIM.
I realize how lucky I am, and how much control I really have, despite these spikes of anxiety.  There are only two of us in this 3-room apartment, enough space to work apart from each other. A pantry full of food and even some snacks.  No struggling to make kids happy and healthy with enough toys and games and broadband to share.
 So many people are crowded into really small spaces now, and many more have nowhere at all. I saw a line of tents for the homeless on my walk yesterday.  The covered grocery cart parked outside is their organizing tool, their storage, a bit of something they can control, something they can keep clean, if only by the tarp covering their possessions.
I am privileged.  But still, a little cleaning can’t hurt.  It is a form of taking care of others, and of ourselves, as we reconsider the meaning of shelter, as we shelter in place.
Here is a beautiful image  from Phoebe Farris,  photographer and  Native American, titled “Mohegan Wigwam.” Art Heals.

Art Heals: Boarded Up

Every day that I take my afternoon walk I choose a different part of the city to explore. It’s fun the see Spring springing up in urban tulip gardens, people on stoops social distancing with people on the sidewalk, each holding a drink, and  local restaurants creatively addressing the universal closures with clever delivery and takeout options, such as that from our local pizza place offering a roll of toilet paper with every order.

But I also saw many businesses, forced to close by decree of the mayor, boarding up their windows as if we were preparing for a hurricane.  While I can understand the impulse to secure the premises from possible break-ins, it saddens me to think that we have come to that.  I am not unaware of history, that pain and frustration and anger at injustice in many cities led to riots and destruction.  I pray that we are not there yet,  that relief measures can flow to those in most need quickly and that the extraordinary  kindness and  self-sacrifice of so many, from doctors, nurses, orderlies,  firefighters,  police,  grocery clerks,  postal workers,  delivery  people and so many others, can mitigate some of the frustration and fear.

But I worry that as more time passes and confusion reigns about a path to that light at the end of our tunnel, we will board up empathy, walling us in to our isolation.  Fear of the “Other” is primal in the human psyche, an ancient survival skill buried now  under layers of civilization, but as we have seen too often in religious and ethnic conflict all over the world,  easily brought to the surface in times of scarcity or perceived crisis, pitting brother against brother and friend against friend.

Listening to the news, which tells us that no one knows who is a carrier of this virus, that asymptomatic people could spread it unknowingly, that we are still not sure of transmission vehicles (cardboard? plastic?  metal?  the air?)  instills that ancient fear of the Other so damaging to our better instincts.

So while we wear gloves, and stay 6 feet away, and communicate virtually, we can still smile, and make eye contact, and sing from our balconies or front yards. Physical isolation, not emotional isolation.

Here, from photographer and minister Katie Archibald-Woodward, is an image from those forced to board up, remaining open and hopeful.  Art Heals.

Art Heals: Lipstick

Social media and traditional news sources are full of advice about the adjustments we are all making as we work from home.  Keep to the same schedule you would if you were going to the office (ignoring the fact that your commute is now 2 minutes, 3 if you can’t find your slippers.)  Eat lunch with a plate or bowl and fork or spoon.  No, just snack when you feel hungry, there is no one watching.   Get fully dressed to put yourself, mentally, in work mode.  Dress only the top half (but don’t get up during Zoom meetings.) (Also, don’t eat during Zoom meetings.) Advice, advice.
So, I am not going to give you advice.  But I am going to tell you what I do.  Lipstick.
Every morning, after I get up, and have breakfast, and get dressed (both halves) and get a little news, my heart lurches as I approach my laptop.  Work.  I want to work.  I need to work.   But the work is so different from what I used to do.  So much less active. So little interaction, except the virtual.
 I think we all are searching for the relevance our jobs gave us.  For those lucky enough to still receive a paycheck, there is the stress of making sure that our bosses see us as essential, that the work we do virtually is vital enough to keep the job.  For those  who  no longer have the jobs they counted on, there is the stress of worry  about their families, and self-worth, as we, as most Americans, (erroneously, but it’s a fact) define ourselves by what we do, rather than by who we are as humans.
For creatives, there is the added stress of making things in isolation.  As I often quote Degas,

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”  Not knowing if anyone will see or hear or read or touch your work is very hard.  Thus, we have the wonderful online concerts and virtual art shows and posted poetry. It helps, but as time wears on, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep it up.
So, for my part, as I translate my work as a curator into these letters, to showcase the amazing artwork that creatives produce, I rely on lipstick to get me started. Every morning, red lipstick. Don’t ask me why, I don’t understand it myself, but red lipstick gives me a sense of agency.  I face the world, or at least the reflection in my computer screen, and power through. 
Today’s artwork reflects this power a woman can feel.  This is graffiti bravely painted on a wall during the Arab Spring, in Cairo.  In the original image, the beautiful woman, dressed to the nines in her red dress and shoes, is fighting back against harassers with her spray paint, saying no to the oppressors.  I have taken the liberty of altering it a bit for our present crisis.  I see her, in her red dress and shoes and lipstick, fighting the virus with her spray can of disinfectant and her powerful spirit of getting through this.
Lipstick.  It is a small thing, but it’s mine.
And for me it’s working, at least for now.  Art Heals.

Art Heals: Resilient

Looking at art is for me a primary necessity, which is why I enjoy representational, expressionist, and abstract art.  I enjoy delving into the layers, searching for pentimento to the thoughts beneath the surface. Titles are helpful, of course, but aren’t necessary; you are your own best interpreter of what you see. This piece, painted collage, Resilient Identity by Samar Hussaini, helps me to explore the concept of resiliency.   Defined as an ability to recover from or adjust easily to adversity or change, resiliency has always been the hallmark of people suffering, and surviving, oppression.  I disagree slightly with the definition, as I don’t find it easy to make the necessary adjustments to achieve resiliency in this time of fear and uncertainty, but I am trying.    I probe the layers of the painting searching for talismans to comfort me and give me strength.  Fragments of text from long-ago missives, scraps of woven memories of departed family, symbols of hope and continuity.  A painting, made for another time, but now a path leading me toward endurance and resilience.
Degas said, “Art is not what you see but what you make others see.” Be resilient, be kind. Art Heals.

Art Heals: Gazing

We are looking at the world, and each other, through windows, computer screens, 6-foot distances. We are hungry for the oxytocin rush that comes from a hug or through looking into another’s eyes unencumbered by the distortions of distance or virtual reality. Let’s compensate through the magical touch of the artist, those with skill of hand, and the indescribable genius that turns canvas, paper and pigment into the gaze of the Girl With the Pearl Earring.
As I take my inspiration from today’s artists, here is Doris Bittar offering us a glimpse of Manet’s lovely woman, not encumbered but enhanced by her arabesque screen. Classical art, Islamic design, a gaze into the world. Art Heals.

Art Heals: Elision

Since yesterday evening I have been thinking about how the concept of “the weekend” has changed in these last weeks under self-quarantine.   In the pre-q days, the rhythms of my life began to change on Friday nights.  Often, rather than cooking dinner, we would go out, or call in a delivery of Pad Thai.  I would stay up later, watch a late-night comedy.  On Saturday, I would sleep later than my usual 6:45, and breakfast would be more indulgent than my weekday cereal; English muffins or perhaps pancakes if I had blueberries from the farmer’s market. Then sitting on the couch with coffee, reading a few headlines and planning the day.  A long walk if it was sunny, then my round of the local art galleries, to see the shows and catch up with the curators.  Sometimes there would be a movie, or an evening out with friends.  Come Sunday, same thing, adding in Meet the Press to hear the verbal op eds from the journalists.  Another quiet day, usually fitting in a museum visit from the many on offer here in DC.  We sold our cars 10 years ago when we moved to the city, so every weekend I thought about how lucky I was to be able to do all this on foot. Late Sunday some thought was given to preparations for the week ahead—what I needed to accomplish, a little straightening up of the apartment, and the weekend came to a close.

So now I am thinking about elision.   Elision is often used in poetry and music in order to keep the rhythm. When the letters or sounds are omitted, they are replaced with an apostrophe.  In my life, the elision happens as I try to separate the weekend from the work week.  In this new normal we are all facing, hours and days seem to meld together, making it had to tell what day it is. Not in a good way, as when you are on vacation and really don’t care, but in a slow as molasses sort of way that tires and frustrates you as time revolves in an endless loop with no end in sight.

 In response I am trying to replace the letters and sounds of my weekends with an apostrophe.  I don’t work on the weekends.  Getting up later, no cereal.  Longer walk, at a different time than my usual 5 pm.   Grocery shopping if it is necessary.  Lot’s more reading. Lots more catching up with friends virtually, and hoping they have Facetime so I can get some eye contact.  Getting food delivery at least once, to keep our favorite restaurants in business if possible. Still watching Meet the Press.  Substituting hunting for tulip gardens for the museum visits.  Peering through the picture windows of my favorite galleries, now closed, but where art is still visible from the street (thank you so much for installing a show, and not boarding up!)

We will get through this, though it will take longer than we wish. Consider an elision in your life, replacing the letters and sounds of your daily life with an apostrophe of your own.  The poetry will remain.  This is Tulip, by photographer Amr Mounib.  Art Heals.

Art Heals: Not Drowning Yet

It rained all day yesterday, so no 5 pm walk, and yoga poses in the bedroom don’t help much as the only one I am really good at is that one where you lie flat on your back with arms outstretched.
So of course, I started to think about drowning. In the metaphysical sense, of course.
Many of us feel like we are drowning, in anxiety, in confinement, in boredom, in guilt, in too much time for reflection on all of this. Some of us may even be “drowning our sorrows,” though too much of that is not recommended. And we have to be careful not to drown in the sea of others’ expectations.
As Bob Dylan sang, "You better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone, 'cause the times they are a-changing."  Indeed, everything about the present times are mutating like the virus that holds us in thrall.  But I am not drowning yet. I am daily searching for the buoy that will keep me afloat.  Now is the time to put on your water wings and swim in pools of laughter and friendship and love

 I found a great sketch by Adnan Charara, made around 2014, I think, that I hope will have you drowning in chuckles, or irony. Art Heals.