Everyone to whom I speak has the same reaction: how quickly these days in confinement pass! Yet it seems an eternity, another life, since this whole pandemic fell on our heads, seemingly out of nowhere. It is almost hard to remember the first months of 2020, when life was “normal”.
Normality, for most artists, included engagements, trips, exhibitions. I know mine did. But now three main exhibitions this year have evaporated for me – obviously there are more important, much more important, issues. However, artists of all stripes have to live too, and finding a new way to make a living has been full of challenges but also inspirations.
I am so impressed at the creativity shown by musicians producing wonderful music together, each sequestered in their homes, at ballet being produced at home and shared by YouTube, talks and lectures about art, literature, opera, everything. Visual arts thread their way through so many of the videos people share on a daily basis and enrich us all.
Nonetheless, I am not sure how many of these endeavours, into which so much spirit and energy are being poured, are actually going to put the bread on the table. And, as so dismayingly often, culture is the step child when it comes to governments helping financially, particularly the individual artist. The cliché of the starving artist is unnervingly relevant again.
One simple, generous idea that an English artist, Matthew Burrows, recently had is to set up a system under the Instagram hashtag #artistsupportpledge, whereby artists offer original art for sale directly to a buyer via Instagram, for $200, 200 euros or 200 pounds sterling. They pledge that after achieving five sales, or, say, $1000 in sales, they in turn purchase a piece from a fellow artist for $200. Thus the generosity can be spread further and everyone can potentially be helped a little.
The very clear logo for the venture
I think it is an elegant reaction to our rather dire situation as visual artists. I have launched into doing it – who knows where it goes, but sitting passively at home and in one’s studio is not a good solution to confinement in our pandemic-frozen world.
My first “offering” on Instagram and beyond of a silverpoint and washi paper drawing for sale, Gift from the Garden, 19 x 14 cm., for $200 plus postage. I love picking up feathers and drawing their exquisite delicacy.