Pandemic Life Project

 Today the South Bay Art Association and the Patchogue Sketch Club took part in Arts on Terry, a contemporary art fair including 300+ artists from a variety of Long Island Arts organizations. I had two paintings that were hanging with the South Bay Artists. 

The Patchogue Sketch Club did a group exhibit on Pandemic Life. Eleven of our sketchers each received an 11 x 14 canvas and was asked to sketch a scene of something that might have been seen through a window during the pandemic. Each canvas would be a window in a facade of a building that was constructed of plywood and painted to look like brick.

I decided my window would look into a room where an artist was sketching the view outside. I made it look like an art studio with shelves with bins for art materials. The artist was sketching on an easel with her mask at the ready in case someone came in.

Here are the three walls of our pandemic building with the scenes from each artist. The building panels were standing in a triangular shape.

Map Making

The NYC Urban Sketchers met on Zoom on Sunday. Our sketching was not urban sketching. In the morning we did a map of something or some place that was familiar to us. I got started but didn't come close to finishing by lunchtime. I was working on a map of some memories of places and things on Long Island from childhood to now. I finished the rest of it today.

For the afternoon we did maps that were more personal (although I sort of did that in the morning too). This one was my pandemic survival map showing more of a timeline of my days.

Pandemic Life

I hope all of you are coping with the restrictions from the pandemic. It seems like there is something new we need to prepare for every day. Listening to the news yesterday it seemed that it wouldn't be long before those of us on the outer edge of NYC would be wearing masks when we went outside. Of course you can't buy them anywhere right now. So I looked at some of the patterns to make them and decided I should be able to do it and be prepared. 

My sewing machine has been giving me problems for years, and I end up more frustrated than anything if I try to use it. My friend, Susan, gave me some advice a long while ago about the way the needle was facing but of course I never bothered to see if what she said would work. So I decided instead to hand sew the mask. I didn't want to go out to a store to buy the material (and increase my chance of exposure) so I checked to see what I already had that I could use. Luckily I found a pillow case that has no matching sheets, and I used that for the material...not fancy but it did the job. I gathered all my supplies and cut and sewed for about 2 hours this morning...and I had success. Of course I could never mass produce these but it will suffice for now. Here is a sketch after I finished sewing.

And here's a sketch of me wearing my creation. Several friends told me I should paint a design on it, but I'm not sure what I will do.