For the last few weeks, I’ve been working on a new series called Centering. When I first began, it was an inner need to stop an ever increasing mental chaos. I was searching for balance, for a more centered way of being and thinking.

Instead of my usual way of painting, I began drawing an abstract on paper. As I drew, I felt I was releasing my chaotic thoughts onto the white background, searching with pencil and black pen for a calm center. When the first drawing was finished, I knew I would do more, but at that point, I still thought it was just me in need of centering.

Thoughts of the second drawing began soon after the first was finished. The more it developed in my mind, the more I understood what I was doing - expressing an emotional response to the coronavirus.

In Centering/1 there is chaos - lines twisting and turning, going nowhere. The lines on the outside suggest walls - those walls that are implied from distancing.

In Centering/2, the lines for the walls are thicker as our isolation expands. The circle represents incomplete actions. The bench, loneliness. And the dashes dropping from the incomplete circle, sadness.

To be continued…