Check out Elephant’s Continually-updating Coronavirus Diary. ~ Waylon
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It’s an artist’s dream—uninterrupted time alone.

Time to immerse oneself in the creative medium of your choice: paint, write, dance, drum, create.

But this dream comes wrapped in a nightmare. A nightmare of uncertainty, fear, and illness.

Is it ethical to actually enjoy this time? Will your creative process be affected? Can you access the materials you need? How must your creative process change to fit the parameters of this new era?

And what any artist can tell you is out of their hands:

When will inspiration strike? Will the muse awaken? Will the words come, the vision, the spark? And will it be “in time” to benefit from this sudden and strange abundance of solitary time in which to create?

These and other questions have been swirling around the mind of this creative—and I’m sure those of many others.

Yes, art can transcend tragedy. It can lift us up and give us a way to share what we are thinking and feeling in an immediate and visceral way.

Is this enough to defend against those who might see it as selfish to harness this time and use it to be productive?

I think, for myself, the answer will be decided by whether inspiration can still be found in this new and anxiety-fueled landscape.

Will the fear mute the muse? Or will artists around the world find a renewed sense of urgency and importance in their work?

Art as a mirror, art as therapy, art as politics, art as time capsule, art as the most human of endeavors—as essential as food or medicine to those who are driven to create and consume it.

Art is life and life-affirming.