In my dual role as President of the Board of Directors and currently exhibiting artist, I would like to bring attention first to the effort of the base team that is responsible for helping to make the recent fund-raising auction a success. Despite the setback of the Covid-related pandemic, we have also secured several grants to help fund our operation, and have re-opened our doors to the public. My message is one of hope that as citizens of Earth, we recognize our part in the overcoming of contagious diseases and unjust treatment of our planet and our fellow human beings. A new word has come to mind; something everyone should consider – ‘pandempathy’.
During the winter of 2020, more than 40% of Americans reported symptoms of anxiety or depression, double the rate of the previous year. That number dropped to 30% in June 2021 as vaccinations rose and Covid-19 cases fell, but that still leaves nearly one in three Americans struggling with their mental health. In addition to diagnosable symptoms, plenty of people reported experiencing pandemic brain fog, including forgetfulness, difficulty concentrating, and general fuzziness. Americans are slowly coming out of the pandemic, but as they reemerge, there’s still much trauma to process. Continued caution must be exercised as the Delta and other variants continue to spread. It’s not just our families, communities, and jobs that have changed; our brains have changed too. We are not the same people we were 18 months ago.
“EASE ~ finding one’s place” is the title of a solo exhibition of my art to be held during the month of August 2021 at the SPECTRUM Art Gallery in Fresno, CA.
The overall political tension of the populace during the last four to five years, and most especially during the last year, in which just about everything changed due to the COVID 19 corona virus, has given us a great need/cause for EASE. With new patterns of behavior having been mandated to ensure our safety, we started wearing masks to protect ourselves and others, we employed social distancing and seclusion. As an artist, I have always valued my undisturbed time alone in the studio. As a social human being, I crave interaction with others. In my time spent alone, I found myself inspired to affirm my personal space and place based on location, to create a significance of place interspersed with these current conditions and various aspects of personal causality and identity.
For this upcoming exhibition opportunity, I chose a self- imposed system and direction that would involve working with the fifth letter of our alphabet. My first inclination to do so was because it is the initial of my given name, secondly, the lower-case version of the letter ‘e’ has become ubiquitous as the prefix for anything and everything electronic, such as e-mail, e-trade, e-commerce, and Audi’s new electric car, the e-tron, etc. The letter E is also the most utilized of all the letters of the alphabet, which has proven to be quite valuable to code breakers. Then there is the plethora of wonderful words that start with E: Earth, ecstasy, elephant, elated, exuberant, elemental, exceptional, energetic, elusive, eucalyptus, excruciating and EASE.
By super-imposing a sans serif form of the letter E on a map of Fresno, CA, specific locations at the twelve corners or nodes of the letter were identified. The next step in the process involved exploring these twelve appointed locations, seeking the most interesting and inspiring visuals that would become photographs for the exhibit.
The chosen images from the exploration of the specified sites resulted in numerous images or “snapshots” that have been printed and will be presented as part of the installation. A large version of the letter E has been cut from a sheet of plywood, (approximately four feet by eight feet), upon which there is an enlarged map of Fresno. This table like structure will be situated in the gallery horizontally at approximately mid-thigh height. Each of the twelve locations are identified by street signs from the intersection they represent, and their GPS co-ordinates.
Friends and students of mine have been offered the opportunity to have their work in the gallery as an exercise in inclusivity and ‘relational aesthetics’. I invited them to create their piece of art based on their own personal expressions of and about the letter ‘E’.
I thoroughly enjoy utilizing the technical skills I have acquired over the years to communicate my observations and feelings about the world we share with all living things. The second and perhaps most important aspect of this endeavor is that by creating this installation, I am able to provide the viewers, in this time of great chaos, a sense of comforting EASE.
