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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
I saw this sign yesterday. To me, this faded sign represents the perfect image for how most people feel about the pandemic: fading from everyone’s collective minds, part of the past and something that’s been forgotten to take down. However, the sad truth is that’s it’s still very much with us and will be for a long time. We’ve just collectively decided that we don’t care. Just yesterday I learned that my sister’s law firm partner has long COVID and she is barely able to work. People dismiss COVID as mild but the reality is that we will see a lot of unnecessary suffering, be it long COVID or deaths, because of our collective choices and our refusal to implement long term measures (like ventilation, etc). Some days I’m just so discouraged at the state of the world. It feels like we can’t do anything right. The feeling is obviously exacerbated by all the other events happening around the world (Ukraine, school shootings, climate change, etc.). It’s depressing to see that we are incapable to do anything long term if it’s too inconvenient. Even medium term is unbearable to us as a society. We are so privileged and allergic to change, we’d rather be in a bad status quo than do anything about it.
December 7, 2022
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
I submitted one of my digital abstract expressionist artworks to an exhibit in White Plains New York. One of my three submissions was accepted. This is the Statement of Work I provided with the artwork. Statement of Work COVID-19 and the Presidential election have profoundly changed our lives. I use an iPad to create digital abstract expressionism. I studied Art History at Cornell University. I gravitated to the Abstract Expressionist artists. My artwork is an expression of my subconscious. Faith and hope are sustained by leveraging the creative side of my brain. Art and music are part of my family history. My grandfather owned two music stores in Latvia. My father escaped the Nazis by coming to America in 1939 to see the New York World's Fair. My mother survived the Nazi occupation in the Riga ghetto along with her 2 brothers. They survived by singing for the Nazis who would protect them because they entertained the Nazis. Only 1 in 10 Latvian Jews survived the horror of the Holocaust. I consider myself a Latvian Unicorn. I channeled my sorrow about the Holocaust into the creation of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.. ... The conditions of a pandemic that arbitrarily spreads a virus reminds me of the Holocaust and how much luck factors into survival. My abstract art captures my life, particularly when stress becomes more prevalent. We all require self care and creative projects give meaning to our lives in this unprecedented time. ...
March 26, 2021