In the world of small victories we finally landed a set of hair clippers. My mom shipped us the ones dad didn't want her using on him no matter how many YouTube tutorials she watched. Saint Anne the Wife and her varying levels of confidence gave the Herriott boys our quarantine cuts and honestly I can't tell you how good it felt to get a trim. That simple sense of normal is incredibly refreshing.
Here in our 700sq foot world we're mostly trying to keep our children from causing their parents an early death. As per usual Anne's running the show while I'm still trying to dodge parental responsibilities by filling up my journal and making pictures. Yesterday morning I sat down to write and within five minutes immediately had to deal with a seven-year-old's world-ending-meltdown and a two-year-old's potty break he didn't think I was qualified to assist. Thank goodness for afternoons when both Saint Anne the Wife and our second house fire tend to take naps while the first one is absorbed in God knows what in the other room.
How and what are we going to remember after all this nonsense? What are we doing with all the time we have while hiding from the outside? What's it like to live in New York City during a pandemic?
I'm pretty sure my personal journal entries and various still images using whatever distortion / distraction I could come up with that day will be my contribution to all this, but there are plenty of others here in the city making some killer art conveying what it's like to live through a pandemic here.
The “2 Lizards” videos have been “the most on-the-nose, accurate, what it feels like to be in New York City during this quarantine period” cultural product, said Rujeko Hockley, an assistant curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art... “They make me cry.” - The ‘2 Lizards’ of Instagram Are Coronavirus Art Stars
By all means go to Meriem Bennani's Instagram and watch the other episodes.
Another solid find this past week has been "Shelter in Place," a short film by Matthew Beck (@plasticlunch). I randomly got to meet the filmmaker on a subway platform a few weeks back. He was using his camera flash through a random piece of transparent plastic he'd found in the trash and asked my usual "getting anything good?" We quickly got to talking about shooting through different types of transparent goodies and the results we were getting, but both of us were bouncing between trains and didn't have much time to talk. It's these chance encounters you only get by living here in the city that I absolutely miss during this quarantine.
UPDATE: Beck's "Shelter in Place" got picked up by The New Yorker and they did a nice write up about it.
There was also several New York Times articles that just felt right. First up was the Gabrielle Hamilton feature "My Restaurant Was My Life for 20 Years. Does the World Need It Anymore?" Also, an opinion article "The Nude Selfie is Now High Art." Obviously there's a bit of NSFW involved so it's a "choose your own adventure" situation with that link.
Though the debate about art versus pornography has never been settled, a case can be made that quarantine nude selfies are art. Some of us finally have time to make art, and this is the art we are making...
Beyond our Wi-Fi, we don’t have much in the way of connection. Many of us are alone and live in small spaces. We lack the distractions we’re accustomed to and the routines we rely on. But some of the most famous self-portraiture resulted from a dearth of resources.
We are taking a risk at a time when we are not allowed to take risks, baring our bodies with no guaranteed reaction.
Can't speak to any nude selfies happening here at home during this time, but I'll shamelessly point to some of the nonsense I shot while home alone for a period a couple years back; Anne and the boys were visiting family in Louisiana for a few days. Good grief I miss having the space to setup gear and lights.
Can't say the images I'm shooting now are relevant and speaking to the current time, but I do appreciate the time and opportunities I have at the moment. This past week I had a stellar stoop find with a couple lens elements left on the sidewalk. I've been shooting through those two pieces of glass and for sure lean towards the plano convex one that's acting like a diopter. Both are just about the same diameter as my 24-70 lens so it doesn't always cover the image.
