While I’m still navigating this strange, new, smaller world of ours, I’m trying my best to also keep my creative juices flowing. I can’t say I’m working on profound photographs at the moment. I’m very limited in what I can do in that respect. Having 2 kids under 4 is definitely making actively shooting new work challenging. And my studio space is non-existent. Before Covid-19, we started re-doing the entire house. My former studio space – the attic – is now the master bedroom. We were in the middle of working out a solution for me to have a different studio space in our house to work when shit happened. So my equipment is for the most part still boxed up, and I don’t have much room or time to really shoot conceptual work.
But for one of my more important yet still untitled projects (the one where I shoot flowers and plants experimentally) my garden is my studio. And I’m so thankful for spring for that reason. Photographing the little things and seeing their beauty is very fitting with my current mindset and the reason why I feel pretty good for the first time in a long time.
Covid-19 has inspired me, though, to start a new cycle in illustrating. That’s seriously how I refer to them, cycles. They come and go after all. I’m a bit embarrassed when I call myself an artist; part of me feels it needs to have a more constant presence in my life, but instead I keep having phases where I’ll paint and draw, and then I won’t for a few months. And then I’ll start again… Etc. But it’s absolutely something recurring and I guess in a way it does have a presence and a certainty: I always end up picking up a pencil anew. I just wish I could get myself to really go for it. But I guess until then I’ll try to go for it in the moment, and maybe commit to finishing what I start per work, per idea.
So with that in mind: I made a few sketches last week that I would like to share here, inspired by Covid-19 and our new normal, but I want to work on a fully finished product first, not just the idea via rough sketches. So maybe they lose their relevance a little by the time they’re done, but on the other hand, this is such a historic and impactful time… I don’t think we’ll overcome this and our collective experience any time soon.
But taking it day by day, step by step, work by work, flower by flower… and we’ll get through it.
