My life is a project. It always has been. On Wednesday, April 1, 2020. Kathie and I were already twenty-four days into self-imposed quarantine. New York City was seeing a sharp rise in new cases, hospitalizations and fatalities. This would continue for several weeks before infection rate showed signs of ebbing. Unable to get to my studio in Haverstraw, New York I kept busy writing, transforming my journals from 1990 to 1992 when I visited and painted Civil War battlefields under threat from development. At the time it seemed like a piquant metaphor for how the American landscape is a quarrel about what it is. In a divided nation thirty years later, it seems timely again. My intention had always been to write a book on the subject. Suddenly I had time to devote to the task.
Pouring over pairings of words and texts, like in my recent exhibition curated by Laura Vookles at Hudson River Museum, it occurred to me to start a quotidian blog that celebrates travel, making art and keeping journals. In other words, paying attention. Perhaps I thought it might provide some with relief from cabin-fever, or soothe the anxiety of those gripped by fear. Now in the second month of this project, I find the process has had a beneficial effect on me, and hope that it brings comfort to others. At the end of each month, quotidian posts will be archived on new webpages. Below is the page for April 2020. The reader will find plenty of content in each of these links.
