Declare These Days An Artist Residency

In this surreal moment of crisis ....andrew simonet ( the founder and Director of The Artists U) suggests that we ought to declare these weeks of COVID-19 separation and isolation as an artist residency ..... because artists’ skills are sorely needed .....

"Blessed Are The Weird People" by Cindi Moynahan Foreman

andrew simonet writes:

• Artists navigate the unknown. We go in our studios and ask new questions, pushing away from shore and into uncertainty. In this time of roiling uncertainty, we know how to stay awake and responsive, and how to help others do the same. 
• Artists build possible futures. This moment desperately needs futures beyond the sobering medical news and the jarring contortions of policies and markets. 
• We are connectors, conveners, community builders. 
• We understand rhythm, flow, and negative space. Not everything we do right now needs to be doing. Silence is a way of telling. Stillness is movement. 
• We bear witness. We listen to and reveal what it is like to be alive right now. 
• We use what we have on hand to build what we need. We make sculptures from discarded materials, dances out of everyday gestures, music from found sounds. At a time when many are lamenting what is being taken away, we know how to begin with what we have. 
• We create the images and songs and dances and stories that are needed, that comfort and challenge and inspire, that return us to our deeper selves or urge us forward into transformation. 
• We build alternative economies based in collaboration, barter, D.I.Y. resourcefulness, and re-purposing what others do not value. 
• We challenge assumptions and re-frame the world. How we see this current emergency and how we see ourselves within it will determine how we emerge from it. Artists look past the noise to deeper, more radical possibilities.

"In this crisis of meaning, artists are first responders. 

May we answer the call to make the art this moment need"

It's not easy to create when everything around us in in crisis and chaos and we find ourselves worrying about ourselves and our loved ones.

When we are afraid, our reptilian survival brain kicks in pushing us into either "flight, fight or freeze" mode. If you are an artist going to your studio every day and you cannot create ... be gentle with yourself.

Prolific artist Robert Burridge is finding it hard:

"With the news changing hourly, I know it is hard for me to decide what to do - I am being pushed and pulled in all directions. And when I actually get into my studio, I don't know what to do, or how to even start! On those days, when I feel like I just can't paint - I make a conscious decision to go to my studio

 I am not going to promise myself that I will paint. I will do "other studio" things... like journal, look at my journals and sketchbooks, look at art books, clean up - yes, you guessed it - anything other than paint. And that is OKAY"

May you be safe, healthy, happy and at ease (as possible) in these days of isolation. 

May we all answer andrew simonet's call to make the art this moment needs. 

My dog Lexie pauses in front of the Doll & Dems mural (off Bank St, Ottawa)

LINKS:

• Read the full article by andrew simonet from The Artists U here: https://madmimi.com/s/708e601
• My art work "Blessed Are The Weird People" was the featured "Daily Jigsaw" puzzle on June 27, 2015 at JigsawExplorer.com
• Dems & Doll: Ottawa's Everything Art Duo https://www.ottawalife.com/article/dems-doll-ottawas-everything-art-duo