(continued)
The view from the fourth floor
Having no other social contacts besides my husband, I mostly enjoyed walks in the nature, taking photos, visualising my photographs-poems and parts of my future blog as well as reading; a film now and then, and constructive, simulating conversation on the cell phone with my family and friends. My husband started writing and illustrating a unique artist author picture book for our grandson, something he scarcely had time for in the past.
But on Easter Monday, 13 April (no superstitious beliefs attached to number 13) my pleasures are seriously reduced. Not only because festive family gatherings were preventively suspended. I walked too quickly eager to capture a motif for my video (a transparent plastic bag in the wind, caught in a thin vertical branch like some anti-ecological flag!) and twisted my ankle. To this day, I have not fully recovered from that injury. From that moment I have gained experience of my own long-term isolation like many other citizens of the world, only occasionally trying to go back to my walking “trips“. .
Thus, instead in direct communication with the nature, I fully indulge in my new-old activity of watching the nature from my open window. In thus adapted „detached“ contact with the natural surroundings but nevertheless more intensively watching and “imbibing”, I felt tremendous joy for having recently abandoned my intention to move back to the “Stara (Old) Trešnjevka” – today only partly preserved small green oasis in a greater centre of the city as another victim of excessive uncontrolled building construction.
I thanked the nature that had been changing constantly and irrevocably in front of my eyes (and I still do) through my feelings, photographs and occasional notes in words or verses.
Virtual photo exhibition “View through my window”
Soon after my accident, the Gallery of the City of Krapina announced a call for artists to participate in the virtual photo exhibition “View through my window”. The whole exhibition has just been published in the virtual gallery available on the website and Facebook page of the Gallery/Open University of Krapina[1][2].
For the exhibition, I submitted two photographs from the cycle in progress – (approximately) the same frame (cadre) of the same motif from my home environment, shot in three weeks apart.
In chronological order (here with a “jump”) I follow the interplay of nature and human with forms – intensified by colours, textures, light and shadows – now partly determined by coronavirus. Thus, in the same visual frame, the section of a rectangular garden changes into a section of a circle that is the sphere of a wild chestnut tree top.
And the corona-dictated immobility or lively movement of people afterwards – in a period without rain – participates in this game of change in a way that is also interesting to follow.
In parallel with the review of all taken photographs, my note-verse was formed.
As photographic services were still unavailable, my final photography diptych with text could not get its intended printed form, with the handwritten text in margins. Instead, each digital photo got its digital text in margins.
Triangles, ellipses, rectangles/The views from the fourth floor… Photography diptych with text. Digital photographs (Zagreb, Prečko, Croatia: 4. 4. 2020, 15:48; 25. 4. 2020, 13:01). Digital text (23. 3. 2020).
Triangles, ellipses, rectangles
The views from the fourth floor
Spring in the time of coronavirus
The stream of Life–the games of forms.
Mtd, 21. 5. 2020
It seems to me that, in the process of (self-) creation of this diptych (inseparable from the memorized sensory data of the smell of plants and earth, the chirping of birds, the barking of a dog, the wind…), I have found, in accordance with the author of the book Ikigai, all five pillars of ikigai, including those which the author identifies as “starting small“ and “releasing yourself“.
In any case, we are familiar with the opinions of phisicians and psychologists about the positive effects of nature on, for example, anxiety and depression. And I personally believe that in a state of lethargy, excessive worry or anxiety – the natural environment has a positive and calming effect on us, as it directs our attention (instead of solely to ourselves and our conflicts) to the richness of diversity and overall harmony in nature, its continuous and reliable cyclical changes, its continual renewal as well as to its adaptability and toughness.
Call for artists – Selfie “Corona 2020“
My most recent activity in virtual art events related to the global artistic reaction to the coronavirus pandemic 2019–2020 was a response to a Facebook call for artists from the Spanish artist and art educator Pilar Viviente to participate in her project Self-Portraits “Corona 2020”[3].
I gladly joined the Project with a required short text related to one’s “selfie – black and white, color or combining color with black and white “.
However, I was very reluctant to send the basic attachment to the exhibition – my black-and-white self-portrait in the form of a “selfie” taken with cell phone. Due to lack of time, I had to give up the idea of a much more promising “selfie” taken with a camera.
(Dear Pilar, here’s my first and the only selfie so far, made just for your Gallery 😊. Unfortunately, I can see that it doesn’t look like me 🙁. These days I’m max busy with launching my blog, so this is all I can do now.)
It reveals neither my current appearance nor my usual “posture“. Maybe just my silent resistance to the negative…
Subsequently, I replaced that black-and-white “selfie as an inauthentic self-portrait” with its more objective version. Now it’s a black and white photo with colour accents – (details of) my authentic photographs-poems in the background
| The NO! time of Corona Only brings me closer To my art and the arts, Nature and people I love. Mtd, 21. 5. 2020 |
With this post, I end my review of several sketch stories from my own and partly our shared experience, and search for answers to challenges in the period undoubtedly marked by coronavirus.
An overview of several children’s “art sketch stories” follows in my fourth post: the examples of children’s need for personal creative expression even in a time or an environment which offers temporarily limited opportunities.
Notes: