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, the art of paying attention. Perhaps I thought it might provide some with relief from cabin-fever, or soothe the anxiety of those gripped by fear. After more than two months, posting seventy quotidian dispatches helped me get through the siege. I hope they might bring comfort to others.