Now it’s pretty much stopping with the garden pots as well as the artists can’t mentor young proteges in the studio. But the already created ceramics are serving a purpose: “We hope that by arranging contact-free delivery and collection we can help people get on with their gardening at home during this strange spring. … That’s a nice transfer from the work of people making pots to something that can entertain people at home.” (And the youth get paid, too.) – The Guardian (UK)
Author: ArtsJournal2
The Show Is Delayed, But That’s OK With The Artist
Deborah Roberts, 57, who was set to have her first solo show in September, says, “My daddy hated art and said it was never going to be nothing. He would say, ‘What are you doing that for?’ … Nothing anyone can tell you is ever going to make you stop doing it.” Not even a pandemic that pushes your show back until January. – The New York Times
How To Become An Opera Star From Rural South Africa
Soprano Vuvu Mpofu grew up surrounded by music in church choirs and school, but when she first heard an aria when she was 15, “the girl plunged into the library to find out where the music came from, what it was that had just penetrated her heartbeat and that would mark her life.” – El País
The View From Quarantine Easels
Artists from San Diego, Chicago, Saskatchewan, New York, and more weigh in. Dia Bassett, for instance: “With the COVID-19 pandemic, my life as a mom to a toddler is more confined. My parents are not able to come help with caregiving, so I’m caring for my daughter full-time. It means I create art on the fly, so I have some of my old childhood paintings and college drawings tucked in a corner by the couch to pull out at any given moment.” – Hyperallergic
To Heck With Streaming Everything; It’s Time To Read Montaigne
Well, why not? The original essayist might be the way to go. “On Solitude is one of Montaigne’s many small masterpieces. It’s an essay, typically short and, as always, disarmingly conversational. It discusses, without any hint of didacticism, the merits of being alone. Montaigne insists throughout his essays that he’s writing only to further his own understanding of life; that he’s totally unqualified, and we can ignore him if we like.” But let’s ignore our screens instead. – The Irish Times
Note To Fundraisers: Get The Unions On Board Before You Make A Plan Not To Pay Performers
The charity Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS was planning a stream of a November 2019 (remember those halcyon days?) concert that celebrated the 25th anniversary of Disney on Broadway. Problem: While SAG-AFTRA and Actors’ Equity were on board, the American Federation of Musicians was not. The union’s president: “Especially now, with zero employment in the entertainment sector, the content producers should care enough about the welfare of those who originally performed the show to see to it that they are fairly compensated when their work is recorded and streamed throughout the world.” – The New York Times
What Have We Learned About Wellbeing So Far In Our Isolation?
Wellbeing isn’t individual; it’s social. And in this, the Great Pause, we see that “It’s not quite a revolution, but it’s an epic conceptual awakening. … In some ways it’s like a blissed-out stoner’s dream of what the world might be.” – The Observer (UK)
Baritone Ludovic Tezier Warns That The Virus ‘Will Have The Skin Of The Arts’ If Governments Don’t Step In
The opera singer says that the lyric arts are particularly at risk with the shutdown, and he addresses President Macron directly in his column. “I speak on behalf of troubadours and acrobats who go on the road, often far from their own, and whose only possibility of building their life rests on the intangibility of the next contract. There are very few wealthy people in this laborious little world, very few whose calendar goes beyond the next ten months. The life of artists is a daily struggle.” – Le Monde
For Theatre History’s Sake, Record Your Plays And Musicals
When there’s another pandemic, your theatre can be the one making history with broadcasts on YouTube or, who knows, something on Quibi. – The Stage (UK)
City Lights Books Sends Out A Cry For Help, Gets $400,000 In Donations
The iconic San Francisco bookstore founded by Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti said in its GoFundMe appeal that it was continuing to pay salaries and health care for its employees, but that it wasn’t doing online orders to keep its people safe – and thus was out of money. Thousands of people responded. – San Francisco Chronicle