(Trigger Warning!) COVID-19 Talk

cw/tw: I will be talking about the elephant in the room, you know, the thing that has ruined our lives, caused panic and cancelled our schools. . . . c*vid-19.

Needless to say, we have all been affected in an incredibly wide variety of ways from this random, pesky, and nefarious virus- some of us have gotten it, some of us haven't; some of us have lost family and friends, some haven't; some have been careful, some have not. You could go on all day, but I have come to realize that people are handling it on a multi-level spectrum. There's absolutely no getting around it. You can have virtually zero human contact and never leave your house and find a way to contract it, and some can go to bars every day and never get it.

I lived in Italy from January through March of 2020 - in the heat of it all , I was in Milan for fashion week which ended up being one of the biggest hubs of the early virus, I traveled around during march and took a full flight back to Chicago, guess I got lucky. Did I mention I was with my diabetic and big time marijuana-loving father? In Amsterdam? That may be too much for one post..

Personally, I feel as though I have been largely stripped of my education in these times- losing access to my studios and taking studio art classes online where the TA says "hmm I don't know, maybe go to the trash rooms of your dorms/apartments and look for cardboard and make something out of that?"

I feel like my hundreds of thousands of dollars spent towards a visual arts degree is being thrown down the toilet and really turning my college experience into a marathon to get a sheet of paper rather then a time spent learning about the craft that I hope to pursue in life.

I can't predict the future, but I am no longer optimistic. I don't care how "close" we are, I will only believe it when I see it. One more semester, lets hope for the love of god that it's a good one.

Installation Project

The worldwide jazz community was absolutely decimated during the pandemic. We lost so many- From old legends such as Jimmy Cobb, Jimmy Heath, Ira Sullivan, Joe Segal and McCoy Tyner to much younger and unexpected names like Chick Corea, Wallace Roney, Ralph Peterson and Mark Colby- everyone is leaving us. As is tradition for "us" jazz musicians, we must spend our short interactions with masters carefully, learning the intricacies and stories that are required to keep this precious music alive and fresh, with every new generation learning from and improving upon their predecessors.

These musicians did not achieve their respective levels of mastery with hard, sweaty, tough work, practice, and most importantly: playing with and learning from those around you. So that's exactly what I did (although is was by no means "masterful").

While my project may not have been staged in library mall, I feel as though I was still able to achieve a high level of interaction with my so-called audience. This project was eerily similar to some of the videos I saw coming out of my COVID location in Florence- Bringing music to the the streets, very distantly of course.

I had a great time putting my drums on the balcony, hearing my friends voices on the kit, learning and listening to the heroes we have lost this past year.

Walking Tour

This my fourth blog post, however, I will be focusing this post on my first project, my walking tour.

I love hearing and telling stories and have always felt stories are the best way to connect with strangers and friends alike. This pandemic has been a disaster. We have all been isolated from human contact for over a year now, and whether or not your vaccinated, things are not even close to "normal." I haven't seen my progressively deteriorating grandmother in over a year and haven't seen my grandparents on my mom's side since my poppy's funeral in 2019. I miss hearing stories and seeing smiles more than I can describe.

For my walking tour I wanted to stray from depressing COVID-19 facts, news and stories and focus on things that will make people smile and generate a running discussion on funny topics. I talked about my first college party, crazy roommate tales, real (fake?) ID stories and more and was really happy with how quickly I learned about all of my classmates. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't poetic, and it wasn't aesthetically pleasing. . . so . . . was it art? Who cares? It contributed to Michael's radical utopian experiment of making us all be friends and in turn positively contribute to our own community.