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“It used to be a perfectly ordinary day but now it sticks up on the calendar like a rusty nail.” —Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

"Window." A collage of found and borrowed photos, paintings, and scans. Friend and talented human Able Parris, has been inspiring me and many others through #collageretreat


Vitamin C! Nº 21. An Ordinary Day

On Friday, March 6th, I had dinner at Briciola, a tiny wine and cicchetti bar in Hell's Kitchen. It was a short walk from the Armory art show at Piers 90 and 94 where I'd spent the afternoon. A friend and I dug into steaming plates of pasta while it rained outside. We drank generous pours of wine. We talked about our love lives. We hugged each other goodbye.

The following Friday, the 13th, life proceeded largely as usual. I ran errands in the Lower East Side, ate sushi during happy hour, and rode on the D and the C trains. At this time, there were 421 known cases of covid-19 in NYC.

By the 20th, a week later, we were at 8,402 known cases. NYC announced that all non-essential businesses were to close by 8pm the next day. It didn't seem real. My birthday was coming up and I wrapped up remaining appointments downtown before my boyfriend was to fly in. I picked up groceries, got my nails done. Afterward, I hurried home.

That was the last time I touched another human being.

It's hard to believe that it's only been a month since the world got eclipsed. We can still make out the shape of our lives, a vestige of routine and rhyme...but what we've known has blurred into a darkness where time is disjointed and disordered. A floating body of parts on a wide and soundless sea.
 

"Fish." A collage. Quote from Anne Carson. Mix of borrowed scans, my own illustrations, self-portrait.

We're all dealing with the pandemic differently. I don't just mean in terms of reaction or agency. My world is a universe apart from those with children or a job in the service industry; someone with asthma, someone who is 83, a graduating high school senior, a nurse.

I'm physically healthy and comfortable in the day to day. I squirm often in my privilege but I'm not going to indulge in a tiresome exercise of verbal expiation here. Rather, I want to share with you some hard-won insights about (my) creativity in a time of crisis.
 

"Loss." Another collage.

I've been grappling with creative sluggishness while in quarantine—at times outright paralysis—and I've been thinking about why it's been so hard for me to make, or even want to make, during this time.

I'm anxious like anybody. I'm overwhelmed by a rage against the machine, irritated by human beings: our sheer foolishness, ignorance, and selfishness made ever more manifest by a global catastrophe. (Silver lining in this is that earth gets to detox from us for a bit, however short-lived the respite.)
 

Collage. BG scan from Able, cutout from a vintage Vogue cover, old Turkish proverb.

I'm hearbroken for my home. This great City of New York, all the small businesses, the crazy denizens that make it glitter and draw in, are suffering so much right now. To see fear, suspicion, and even hostility as a norm here in NYC where I learned the meaning of community, saddens me.

The other day, solo and well-distanced from anyone else, I walked almost 100 blocks from Harlem to Times Square. Out of restlessness and a craving for physical exertion, but also in a spirit of solidarity. What I saw was shocking and surreal.
 

Columbus Circle and Times Square, deserted.

To be honest, it felt as though the City had died. For the first time it occured to me that the New York we've all known and loved might be gone forever.

I don't, and don't want to, believe it. I don't need to believe it right now, so I won't. I'm desperate to be optimistic.

The truth is though that I'm pretty bummed out. This is probably why I'm unable to speak properly. But not for reasons you might think: I'm mute not because I'm sad—rather, I've been gagged by my inability to acknowledge that I am.

Before I began "Ordinary Day," the first collage in this newsletter.

I mean—I don't want to be what I call a vampire. Someone who's incessantly negative, angry, mopey. We all know at least one: people who suck you dry with a deep and enduring darkness that will always, always subsume, people who are revitalized at the expense of your light and energy, unable to produce their own.

"The Last Winter." Watercolor for my sister's birthday this past February.

Fear of being parasitic, and the consequent self-mandated gag order, have effectively halted my creative practice. But the sadness remains, metasticizing unchecked. So what do I do?

  1. I can dull it—with tv, sleep, social media, radio, the news.
  2. I can distribute its burden—among others, at their expense. Complain, wring my hands, make others absorb my pain so that I can temporarily feel less of it.
Obviously I'm loathe to do the latter so been indulging in the former. I've also been comparing myself to others, who process and make differently than I do. The combination has resulted in lethargy and protracted paralysis, which, the longer it goes on, the longer it goes on. Inertia is real, y'all.

A third option, which I'm only beginning to see after writing all this out, is to lift the gag order. If sad is what I have, that's the fiber with which I should weave. That's the key difference between #2 and this #3: giving versus taking.

Instead of draining others with an absorbing darkness, I would make of it something that returns and augments. 
"Faces." Watercolor for my other sister's birthday.

In sum: I don't, really, want to "lift" anyone up right now. At least not in the direct sense. I'm gonna try to be ok with that. I have to also believe that art, however dark, is always additive.

I don't know if this will shift me into a different gear soon, and if it does, what that will look like.

I don't care. 

I've moved forward for the first time in many weeks.
 

Le reste


I'll be sharing the rest—fruits of labor, recommended daily intake, and results from the survey I sent out earlier this year—in part 2 of this newsletter. Shortly.

Take care of you. Take care of us.
Copyright © 2020 Coleen Baik, All rights reserved.






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Coleen Baik · 500 Westover Dr · #8701 · Sanford, NC 27330 · USA

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