When the pandemic first made apparent that it was serious and not going away, and stay at home orders came, schools closed, I became almost paralyzed. After an initial fog, I absorbed and maybe digested my new reality - schedule, location, isolation etc. - and I made space for drawing. I gathered some of my favorite materials that were also portable – paper, inks and pens. This insistence on a space that was exclusively art and other (away from constant stream of news and concerns about life - what we would eat, laundry, finances, worry about my daughter in a state of indefinite isolation) was crucial to my wellbeing. The first drawing from the Quarantine Drawings series I made is titled Into the Light which is really indicative of how I feel or how I am trying to feel and what art does for me. The uncertainty of the quarantine - what exactly will it entail and for how long - is a little bit like being in a dark tunnel with no end in sight. The idea of light somewhere, searching for it and finding it in whatever way possible is a savior.
The drawings are made by letting ink pool on a paper, shaping an initial composition. From there, I follow the ink pools in pen and slowly find a map-like order, often imposing a grid, in an effort to make sense of what seems uncontrollable.