Monique
patreon
May Day
🕑 Added 2020-05-01 16:53:58 +0000 UTCHappy May! I hope you are staying healthy and sane.
I made these self portraits in early March, in anticipation of the events to come. Unfortunately, within days we had hundreds of reported cases. My county has been devastated by this virus, and it's only the beginning for us.
Fortunately, I have always been prepared and resourceful, so living in quarantine is not something that troubles me. Aside from being worried for the health of my mother and siblings, who live many hours away from me, I'm mostly concerned with the economic and social impact this situation will inevitably have.
I am very grateful to have made the shift into journalism when I did. As of now, I'm still heavily employed and working from home. I'm just living one day at a time. The news got pretty depressing for a while, so I've been taking as many uplifting stories as I can get my hands on.
There's a lot of unsettling energy here, as we prepare to re-open our state and county parks. While North Jersey seems to have stabilized, the confirmed cases, hospitalizations and deaths in South Jersey has only skyrocketed in the last week.
I'm trying to balance all my working hours with healthy food, activity such as hiking and yoga, and staying creative. With self portraiture, collage and poetry, I have been able to express myself, and have some commentary into the strange times we are living in.
I submitted two of these images to my first local art show (which has been moved online). They are titled "Basic Essentials" and "The Corona of Panic and Ennui."
I wanted this work to capture the feeling of panicked grasping coupled with the anticlimax of prolonged isolation.
Full set is up at $25+
I'll be posting outtakes there as well, in a few days.
Enjoy.
