We are living at a time that life seems surreal, and I ask myself if I’m imaging this. For the first three months of the pandemic, I sheltered in place at home. Seemingly overnight, the entire fabric of my daily life had been turned upside down. And yet—between trying to order groceries online, keeping up with the news, and by refreshing the New York Times homepage, it was important that I kept myself optimistic, energized, and entertained (and, perhaps, a little distracted). 

That didn’t work out too well. After a few days I was bored, so I bought a 500-piece puzzle and watched a lot of TV. I couldn’t focus enough to read or work from my computer. Then I got to thinking…no one is at my art studio in Bushwick, so I don’t think it would hurt if I drove there, parked my car inside, and started to create again, and that’s exactly what I did. I immediately had more energy, and started to feel alive again. 

My eyes were open once again, but now I saw things I’d never seen before. A pandemic worldwide, looting and breaking windows, violence against protestors, violence against the police, and the threat of American Democracy from a corrupt president and his followers from the far right, white supremacists, and the unthinkable now corrupt Republican Senate. 

Art is me, and I am art. I get physically sick when I don’t work. Bringing people together, inspiring, soothing and sharing: these are the powers of art, the importance of which has been made emphatically obvious during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In January, I had a lot of deadlines, scheduled shows, and no time. Now I have time and no shows.  How does an artist keep going when the gallery system that supports her seems on the verge of temporary collapse?  Every curator, gallery director, and member of the art world seems to be home. I think the only benefit of this is that it’s time for a reset, a reprieve of the expectations that the art market puts on artists to produce, and to have and to share everything we make.  I’m fine making work in my own bubble because I make art for myself, regardless of whether I show it or not. 

The organized art world has responded beautifully to the lock-down and social-distancing protocols that are keeping people away from physical spaces. Art fairs like Art Basel and Art Dubai have gone online, and numerous galleries all over the world have responded to this new reality with online viewing rooms. The pandemic has closed museums and cancelled concerts, plunging many cultural institutions into uncertainty and immediate financial loss while also threatening a long-term effect on the arts. 

Ticket sales at museums account for a smaller percentage of total income than they do at opera houses or dance companies, yet already the carnage is mounting. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, with a princely endowment of $3.6 billion, has a projected loss of $100 million; institutions with smaller reserves are drawing down fast, and may never reopen. In a matter of days, the world of contemporary art went from a reverberate global network to a ghost town, sheltering in place as the coronavirus endangered our cities and our livelihoods. Like every other sector, art is having to go digital.

For artists, the show must go on, and Zoom is their venue.