#Blown away alexander how to#
#Blown away alexander full#

I’ve been thinking about how wealth allows us to own things, but learning how our things work, and how to maintain them allows us to earn them…or something…īeing on a Netflix series a little more than a year ago connected me to tens of thousands of people through social media. There’s some pleasure in figuring out how to keep everything humming along with what’s readily on hand. Recently, many of us have found ourselves with more time, but less access to specific materials and tools. I was talking about fixing things, as part of one’s studio practice, with my students toward the end of the semester. I think when I’m running around, it’s easy to ignore the unsexy parts of studio work: cleaning and organizing my workspace, fixing and servicing infrequently used tools, inspecting and maintaining old work in storage, and packing up newer work that’s no longer getting any immediate attention.

That said, I see my day-to-day studio work shifting away from deadline-fueled triage and goal-oriented object production, and moving toward maintenance and connectivity. It’s strange to see photos of protesters who must have thought that having the biggest guns would win them the apocalypse, when in fact, it’s qualities like creativity and curiosity that allow us to stay entertained, fulfilled and feeling useful or connected, allowing some of us to thrive, or at least sustain a baseline of normalcy. In that way, the last few months feel somewhat familiar. I’ve done a bunch of artist residencies where you travel somewhere just to be isolated, alone with your work. Many of us spend a lot of time alone already and have developed ways to cultivate the social interactions we need to stay sane, even when physically distant from other people. We’re used to being adaptive, using creative problem solving, and working with constraints as part of our creative process. Even if aspects of our day jobs are suddenly different or temporarily suspended, we have meaningful work to do and we are used to figuring out how to do it in the face of substantial obstacles. Artists are not typically well-compensated for their work, and even when we are, we always do lots of extra unpaid labor. There’s a lot of things we are used to, given the nature of our work, that turn out to be pretty relevant to navigating newly limited financial, social, and infrastructural resources. I think, in some way, artists have quantifiable advantages during this moment.

Has Covid-19 had an effect on your work? If so, in what way? Modeled after a reliquary from the 17th century, this glass vessel contains the collected debris from beneath the keyboard of a piano that had been in use since it was made in 1910.Ģ. (2013) 4 x 4 x 8” Blown glass, waxed cotton string, Philadelphia Opera Company upright grand piano made in 1910. Reliquary, or From Beneath a Piano Keyboard Used For 103 Years I’m at home with my partner, a dog, and two cats so I don’t really go for long periods without interacting with others, or get super lonely. Just getting to talk to a diverse group each week offered some variety. I just finished my semester of teaching this month, which was uniquely stressful, but also socially and intellectually stimulating. There are some other kinds of social/ wellness activities that help me feel connected to my community. I’m taking yoga classes daily, over Zoom, and I do some other physical training with a good friend over facetime.

#Blown away alexander full#

Now that I’ve settled into a new routine and have figured out what the stay-at-home-versions of many of the things I like to do are, my days feel relatively full and I am purposefully maintaining my health and sanity. It felt like a chance to catch up on things that were always getting put off or that I just needed to be consistently in one place to do. For the first couple of months of staying home, the shift from my usual routine was welcome. I’m honestly doing pretty well, all things considered.