Abstract- 20210623- 2

7 Questions, 75 Artists, 1 Very Bad Year

The original article, “7 Questions, 75 Artists, 1 Very Bad Year,” was published by The New York Times, on March 10, 2021.

EcoChi Vital “Vit-Bit”: Great art will be made from this time, about this time, inspired by this time. While we wait for that to emerge, we asked 75 artists to open up about their creative travails and triumphs a year into the pandemic. The questions we asked them are ones you may be asking yourself…

An EcoChi Vital Abstract

Question #1 What is the one thing you made this year?

Great art will be made from this time, about this time, inspired by this time. While we wait for that to emerge, we asked 75 artists to open up about their creative travails and triumphs a year into the pandemic. The questions we asked them are ones you may be asking yourself: Did you make anything that mattered? Who and what comforted you? Which moments will you remember? Which ideas would you like to forget? What would a do-over look like? And what’s still on your to-do list as “normal” comes into focus? Through interviews and written answers, edited and collected here, they let us into the life of a creative mind in quarantine. But they asked to share one caveat: “Obsessing over what it did to me specifically almost inexcusably leaves out my constant awareness of the damage to my community, the arts in general, to say nothing of the half a million dead Americans,” wrote the composer Nico Muhly. “This whole thing is Very Bad.” With that in mind, we open this window into the past — and perhaps a door to the future.

AARON DESSNER musician and producer: “Right as the quarantine started, I started writing so much music, and I had no idea what it was. There was no horizon line, there was a lot of uncertainty — so I just made a lot of music that I didn’t know what it was for. And that’s when Taylor Swift approached me.”

PERFUME GENIUS the musician Mike Hadreas: “In the beginning, I was writing a lot. It was all kind of fragments, but it felt like it was starting a new project, and then it just kind of died. I thought: What if I started drawing again, or doing things that were just creative practices for me? But I’d rather just, like, have a snack, you know?”

KAREN RUSSELL novelist: “I made a googly-eyed owl out of toilet paper rolls. It was supposed to be a collaboration with my 4-year-old son, but we had artistic differences and he left to be a Ninja Turtle. My baby daughter pulled the wings off, and now the owl looks the way we all feel. We’ve got our fingers crossed for the Whitney Biennial.”

SHEILA HICKS textile artist: “I have never gotten so much work done! There are so few distractions or interruptions. Even if you choose to do nothing, you can do it with intensity.”