How are you furthering your thinking, expanding your horizons, and pushing your creativity within the current pandemic?
Claire Druffner
In this sudden and unexpected quarantine, I have found that when I am not sitting down with my cello, I am sewing, cooking, and writing. I create. In quarantine, I have rediscovered that I need to create. I guess that I must have lost sight of this elementary need amidst the normal pressures of art as I usually know it. As a cellist, my practice schedule, competitions, recordings, lessons, and rehearsals have been centered around the end goal of making great music. Now, through quarantine, I have been forced to refocus not on the end goal, but on my very need to create. I am an artist.
Along with this rediscovery of identity, I have discovered that I am bored. Life without people has stunted my motivation, my inspiration, and my creativity. Artists all over the world are similarly suffocating at home. A lack of face-to-face interaction seems to wipe the drawing board of an artist clean and keep it clean.
Yes, quarantine has deprived us of most human contact. However, it has provided us with a surplus of a valuable commodity: time. In normal un-quarantined life, we never have enough time to explore what we want to explore most, and us artists miss out on opportunities to create freely because we must create within time restrictions. Quarantine provides us with a peculiar, much-needed benefit. This benefit gives us a freedom, one that must be claimed.
Now we can explore and create freely. For me, I have wanted to read that book (I recently discovered Tolstoy), make those pants (I love fashion), and work on those pieces (here I come Beethoven and Bach) for too long. Music theory, history, literature, undiscovered songs and musicians, podcasts, and cool arrangements are now all possible. Phone calls with friends I haven’t seen in forever, people I have yet to discover more of, projects to think of and make happen, much-needed self-reflection, and support for others. All of these things are now possibilities.
KiMani Bridges
In this current time, we are stuck. We don’t really have the freedom to really go anywhere and get new creative ideas or find something fun to do. We are just at home - which is great, please stay at home - but it can get quite boring.
One way I try to push creativity is by writing about how I feel: being stuck, having a lack of freedom, boredom, etc.; those feelings could be an inspiration in thinking of new ways to express those emotions like writing new music, a short story, a script for a play, a painting, etc. Another way is to write about what you are watching. For example, after you are done binge watching a show or movie series, think about your favorite character or a theme from it and write or draw what it reminds you of or how it makes you feel.
This also works for objects around the house and/or friends and family. Some of my pieces are inspired by things that I have watched on Youtube or Netflix. Other times inspiration comes from random things like a plant or a box or something else that is living like an animal.
With the extra time I have, using these methods, I’ve started gathering new ideas for pieces and just writing a little each day. So far, I have a list of ideas for two new pieces and the drafts are coming along quite well.
I think that to be creative, you have to find something that is inspiring to you. Push yourself to think outside of the box.
Nina Friedman S
ànchez
As a Junior in high school I am quite frankly exhausted most of the time and aching for “me time” almost every second of the day. My life is usually consumed by far too many hours of school, dance, and the infinite amounts of homework that pile up on a list in my old and beat up planner. On top of this there is the constant looming thought that every action you take in high school will affect your college admissions and therefore the rest of your life. So I would say that life right up until Covid-19 took over, was very close to some dimension of hell for the middle class causcasion Jewtina I am. Ever since the 2019 Novel Coronavirus has taken over I would say my stress has gone down considerably, I am sleeping like a normal person, and I am enjoying homework (GASP!). I have an infinite amount of time to read, paint, embroider, and make whatever the hell I want. Life in some twisted and honestly privileged way is absolutely splendid. Of course there are downsides to this like not being able to see friends, but this too shall pass. Reading has been a really great way for me to pick at the ideas that get tangled up and stuck in my mind. I am currently reading Chicana Without Apology by Eden Torres and A Rap on Race by James Baldwin and Margaret Mead. Much of what I am interested in as an artist, writer, and just person is identity. Chicana without apology dives into what it is like to be Chicana, brown, and the identity politics that come with it. A Rap on Race is basically a conversation about race that James Baldwin and Margaret Mead had for seven hours. It has been an incredible read so far that has opened up so many ideas for me and has helped me understand the untangleable relationship between race and the U.S.. Because I have time to do nothing I am motivated to do something. This enormous amount of time has given me the chance to do things I never would have done. I have made it a goal of mine to go through my grandmother's recipe box and make every single one. You might be thinking how is this furthering my horizons, but alas it is. Cooking is a great way to become familiar with a culture whether it is the culture of a country or a family. In this case it is a little bit of both. My mom’s side of the family is from Colombia and the recipes my grandmother stored in that box gives me insight into my family and heritage. I would say take a deep breath, get a good 10 hours of sleep, and do the little things you always feel like you never get the chance to do. Take advantage of this time indoors and just think for a little bit. That’s it, just think.