COVID-19: INSIDE OUT
2020-2021
I am a former newspaper photographer and in the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020, resisting the urge to photograph the empty streets in Colorado was difficult. After the tragic death of George Floyd, May 25, 2020, emerging from sheltering in place to participate in and photograph the Black Lives Matter protests was a health risk I was unwilling to take.
I have been documenting my experience sheltering in place by using my windows to delineate the interior from the exterior. By placing materials from my collections on the inside and using the exterior landscape as a backdrop, I create new images that sometimes relate directly to the pandemic and sometimes respond to the changing physical landscape outside my home as well as the emotional landscape inside my head.
Adjusting to the profound changes in my life related to the pandemic and being totally alone for days, weeks and now a year has been a combination of managing fear, loneliness, anger, sadness, and sometimes finding a more peaceful coexistence with my new reality. I’ve learned to both endure and embrace the situation. Out of this personal transformation came the work in this series.
Time has blurred as we remain suspended between the lives we were once able to live and the more carefully orchestrated lives we must now live to try to stay healthy. The images in this ongoing series address a variety of pandemic-related issues including hope and fear, longing and memory, and isolation and uncertainty.
It is indefensible that the Trump administration ignored best public health guidance and intentionally turned this pandemic into a political tool that has further divided our citizens. Thankfully the Biden administration is beginning to take steps to get the United States on a path to effectively manage this crisis and is creating a plan to help us return to stability, both health and financial.
The image that opens this series, the human suspended in space with the sky in the distance speaks to the universality of the human experience. At the end of the day we all watch the same sun set, we are all vulnerable to the ravages of COVID-19 and each one of us has the ability to cooperate for the greater good to help make life better for all of us.