We are all feeling the weight of what is going on in our world and especially in our small community, and I thought it would be a good moment to share some art.
First, some backstory: Delilah alluded to this in her previous post, but I want to say a bit more. Once (or “Waaaanse” as Berkeley might say) I went to a baby story hour with Finn who was maybe eight months old. I met a few moms who convinced me to feed my tiny baby an entire piece of cereal (meanwhile their babies were eating full hamburgers). Finn didn’t choke, and our families have been fast friends ever since. These connections have really meant a lot over time, and I love seeing how all the the different relationships have evolved. One of our best ways of connecting lately has been game night (and a quick shout out to Delilah for keeping that going during quarantine).
It feels urgent to maintain these connections right now, and I am especially grateful for the ways in which we are able to transcend the limits of our quarantine. I am also grateful for the connections that are unconditional, not tenuous in the least. I saw this recently, and it seems appropriate to share:
After one of our virtual game nights, I was thinking about all this and wrote a very quick poem. The others shared a few things. (And, by the way, this was also interesting: Social Distancing Haikus). So after a really long introduction...
Welcome to the first (of at least a couple, I hope) VFFC Virtual Quarantine Art Show:
First featured artist: Berkeley Sears with a poem and an drawing:
We Ask
the silent city streets, once bustling with life, sing a sorrowful lullaby, easing us into hibernation. how long? we ask, how long until we wake? how long until the earth may rise from its slumber? when? we ask, when will we be freed from these eerily familiar prison cells that isolate us from one another, prohibiting us from seeing the faces of our closest friends and family? Our own homes grow less and less comforting as days turn to weeks turn to months. This damned disease has taken too many, craving our attention until everything, media, news, all of it reeks with the same sickening smell, the same word echoes through our heads like an endless drum beat; coronavirus, coronavirus, coronavirus.
And her art:
Second Featured Artist: Delilah Kramer
Though Vermont is under house arrest,
We all are still doing our best!
We play games and bake food,
Spend more time slightly nude
Even though we are all kind of stressed.
Third Featured Artist: Me
Between Sleep One and Sleep Two: Thoughts at 2 a.m.
During a global pandemic
Too enormous to wrap our heads around
So much depends upon the little things
Discovering a forgotten box of mini ice cream sandwiches in the basement
And a meticulously designed Pictionary game on the internet
The details so carefully planned
So we could just see your faces, do funny hair, laugh,
And draw turtle horses and lizard zebras
Fourth Featured Artist: Finn Verdonk
Hemorrhage
a round ribbed mouth rejects liquid glass
a trickle of spit against brittle wintered stems
breaks and bends them
listen to the sound of melting
small stones have taken to littering their way along the underbelly of the creek
a damp underbelly already rife with sediment
smooth dirt like a slab of sooty marble
untouched by the water above in some strange act of naturalistic avoidance
but all at once a foot descends to unsmooth the marvelous polished flatness
submerged mushroom clouds ascend
fumes pour like the milk at the bottom of the cereal bowl
sludgy grainy farrago
tranquility snapped like uncooked spaghetti
sharp and uneven
the deep crater
the bullet hole
the wound
seeps thick brown blood sickly
diffuse ink like octopus
spiraling down the river
not necessarily pollution
but something more like the way my head is feeling these days
Fifth Featured Artist: Lupe Sears
Wow - so amazing - all of it :)
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