Amenda Tate

Counting the days, counting the lives, watching from windows, watching the news, anxiously awaiting an all-clear, laughing, crying, dancing, spinning, teaching, learning, sleeping, numbing. Steps forward, steps back, anxiety. Wash your hands. Don't touch your face. Share. Overshare. Hide out. Breathe in and out. Meditate. Medicate. Be here and now. Rest. Repeat.

I did not set out to make a work of art about the crisis at hand. I was simply trying to get myself back into creative living after the shock of global pandemic had me reeling. I spent over a week in “creative quietness.” The anxiety and uncertainty were making me feel like creating art was pointless. Maybe I just couldn’t empty my mind-space enough to create. Maybe I didn’t want to deal with it. I felt sad and numb.

I made myself pick up a scrap of paint test paper, put it in the typewriter, and just go – just do. It came to embody the sentiments of that which I could not ignore nor overstep. The only way forward was through. While this is not my typical art, nothing is typical right now. I am embracing what I can to keep moving forward. It spilled all over the page. I didn’t have to organize it or structure it. I took it out of the typewriter and painted over it. I began blanking parts out like mist - the kind of mist that engulfs the road ahead – like the mouth of a low-lying fog swallowing up everything in its path, or at least changing its outline. The chaos born of the chaos. It is as it is. I am not in control.

Separate. Quarantined. Isolated. Distanced. Sensitive. Overwhelmed. Underwhelmed. Stressed.

None of it matters. None of this matters. Zero. Nada. None. Keep counting. Keep going.