My new ‘landscape’ painting, above!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not self isolating entirely (as far as I know I don’t have Covid yet) but each foray outdoors and back in again is becoming quite a planning expedition!

 

I feel for everyone now whose income or health is affected, it’s very stressful. I’m finding online arts communities especially uplifting at the moment. There’s been a surge of new projects to help self-employed artists get together online, new platforms on which to show and sell artworks and support each other.

I’m a member of the SSA (Scottish Society of Artists) which has hundreds of members across Scotland, so I suggested the idea of ‘Postcard From …’ to the community. It’s a facebook open group in which SSA artist members can post artworks, each at £50 or less in any medium. Visitors to the facebook page can join, comment, view or buy the artworks as they wish.

Here it is!…

Postcard From …

I set it up yesterday and so far there are 25 members and counting. Artworks should start coming in soon and I’m excited to see what will be on show. Feel free to visit the page and ask to join. All welcome!

Scotland’s contemporary arts magazine Art North, edited by Ian McKay, is also setting up a project called …

projectroom2020

It will also be on website, instagram etc. Ian is collecting ideas for online art projects during Covid and I’ll be adding artworks from ‘Postcard From…’ to the project. I’ll post that here once it gets going too.

In recent posts I talked about my new project – from Iona, via Aberlady to Lindisfarne, looking at pilgrims journeys past and present. That’s on hold for now, but I’m very glad to be painting a new commission for a friend, which will still be on the theme since it’s of the wild grass and long beaches of Aberlady – a reassuringly familar subject! I’ll be posting that here soon.

Painting seems a safe occupation in these times. A friend of mine works sometimes on the Covid ward in Edinburgh. I’m sure everyone knows the drill about hand-washing etc, but I know that the NHS will soon be completely overwhelmed. They haven’t been given adequate protection in many hospitals, so clearly NHS staff will be getting ill, while more and more people show up with Covid, as well as the usual health emergencies.

I heard that private hospital bed companies are charging large amounts of money for extra hospital beds, which if true is criminal. I’ve read about how the pandemic was handled and contained in China, which involved using surveillance to note which people (for example) had traveled on a train with a Covid sufferer on board. All people on the train were tracked and enforced to self-isolate by law. In Italy of course entire towns were isolated.

We don’t want that level of state intervention here. It’s possible though, since all of us are tracked through mobiles etc. I thought this post I saw recently put it clearly as regards the Covid issues about to face us – https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

If, like me, your income will take a hit in this time, here’s a useful link about support for self employed and small businesses ..

Help for small businesses

Wishing everyone the very best of health!