The Inspiration
I started spring of 2020 with sketches. While art has been a part of my life since I was young, it was on the backburner while I was running my photography business.
Originally, the fungus was meant to grow from the same log to symbolize our collective experience and growth from living through a pandemic. I’ve used fungus as a visual metaphor before, and this was a natural choice for me to create something new. But as events unfolded, I broke the composition into opposing sides. I gradually added glasslike shards to signify polarization of beliefs and politics.
The major change to the painting came from the tumultuous news cycle, but also personal experiences. It was nerve-wracking photographing weddings during an evolving pandemic. My first wedding back included the father of the bride (a doctor) getting within six inches of my face telling me Black Lives Matter was a stupid movement and that everyone I loved would get Covid-19. I walked away from more than one event shaken. Like clockwork, I was notified a couple days after most weddings that I was exposed to someone infected with the virus. Then I’d have to drop everything to get tested before the following event. Painting this was a cathartic, meditative way to cope and get back into making art.