Art of Pandemia (pronounced: pan day me uh): 

Some of the art here was created during the Early months of the COVID pandemic from Spring 2020 through 2021. Needless to say, the Coronavirus Pandemic has greatly impacted the psyche of people all across the globe. One need be an artist to see and feel the emotional change that has taken place. This situation we found ourselves in impacted the creative structure of our minds. What we were creating then may never be repeated once this pandemic is past. This could be viewed as one of the influential creative times in modern history.

I began the COVID-19 experience while on a road trip to North Carolina starting in mid-January and ending on February 16, 2020. At this time CoVid was beginning to reach our shores and was already taking hold in Europe. March 26 in Minnesota began our stint of isolation. The first thing I wanted was to document this new strange world we began to endure.

Except for the remaining survivors of the WW2 era and refugees now living in the USA, I believe no one alive in this country has ever experienced what we were beginning to witness firsthand. No one knew what to expect or how to respond. Many responded by hoarding toilet paper and sanitizing products. Good citizens around the world hunkered down behind their windows, became teachers, and turned various rooms of their homes into office spaces. We found new ways to express ourselves whether it is visually, musically, or spiritually. We took to FaceTime and ZOOM in order to connect with our friends. Some became foodies and learned to cook and bake bread for the 1st time … when we could find flour. People hoarded that too. We watched Netflix, Hulu and Youtube until our minds and eyes became numbly disengaged. Spotify and Pandora filled our COVID soundtrack with music we had never heard. And, some of us even took up arms and body armor to demand we be allowed to go forward and spread the disease amongst our neighbors and the elderly.

I began the first four months of the pandemic isolated with my son, who was supposed to be starting a new job in South Korea. It was tight in this small space, but we got along fine. Besides, I was lucky to have company during this time, many people did not. As I said, I wanted to document what was happening and began roaming out to find places to photograph: mainly empty streets, stores, playgrounds, etc. That was good but a lot of people were doing that. I also made two videos during this time. But something else piqued my creative flow. While in North Carolina, my pal Tony S and I started doodling with a program titled Affinity Designer and its companion, Affinity Photo.

The results became what I call the Pandemia Series. Artwork created under the stress of living with a global pandemic, an absent government, plus cultural tensions like we have not seen in many years.