As MCV’s part time Administrative Coordinator, I have had much less to do these past few weeks – no office to look after and the staff are all self-supporting from home. But I do have another career, as a painter, and because of some opportunities to exhibit this summer, I’m appreciating the extra time to stay focused on art through these anxiety-ridden days.
Connecting with the amazing and amazingly resilient MCV staff in daily Zoom meetings, and then retreating into the quiet concentration of my studio work is most definitely a privileged coping system. Working at home for me has been completely seamless, in that I fit pretty accurately into the artist stereotype of introvert and recluse – and quarantine is almost my natural state.
It helps that my studio is in a spacious 19th century barn, with a view out the window that might offer occasional glimpses of deer, hawks, turkeys, chucks, and fox (watch out, Hens!) Now, in spring, there are also the sights and sounds of migrating birds, which are my muse.
I’m sharing some photos, which I hope will not dash any conceptions about what a studio looks like (tidy rows of lusciously colored paint tubes?) and result in the more serious impression that I am not a neat person. I am, but not here.
My two jobs complement each other in different ways, and I am passionate about both: I am grateful for any way I can support the work of MCV, as it preserves and protects the environment and earth’s ecosystems, the fragility and harmony of which I try to express in my paintings.
