1. What’s one thing you made this year?
Aaron Dessner, musician and producer
Right as the quarantine started, I started writing so much music, and I had no idea what it was. There was no horizon line, there was a lot of uncertainty — so I just made a lot of music that I didn’t know what it was for. And that’s when Taylor Swift approached me.
Tig Notaro, comedian
I made two podcasts. I’m considering a third. And I somehow ended up being green-screened into a zombie action film where I’m a helicopter pilot. I didn’t see that coming. It was kind of like when I was doing “Star Trek” and I was like, “Really? Me?” And then oddly when I was in my “Star Trek” suit it was like, “Oh I guess it doesn’t seem so weird.
Kyle Abraham, choreographer
I probably made seven or eight works. It’s important to note I don’t think people should feel like they needed to do anything. I think there was a pressure around that in the early months, that people felt they needed to be creating.
Tara Booth, comic artist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Sharon Horgan, actor and writer
I made a few good things, thank god. I wrote tons. I hope that’s not a smug answer. It was like work or be damned.
Perfume Genius, the musician Mike Hadreas
In the beginning, I was writing a lot. It was all kind of fragments, but it felt like it was starting a new project, and then it just kind of died. I thought: What if I started drawing again, or doing things that were just creative practices for me? But I’d rather just, like, have a snack, you know?
Makaya McCraven, musician
I was on the road when the pandemic was announced, and we had to come home. I took three months where I didn’t really play or do anything, but the uprisings around George Floyd’s murder is a moment that woke me, creatively. It was like, “You gotta get off your ass and keep hustling and doing the work.”
Eddie Martinez, artist
My older themes have been coming back into my work. I have been painting tabletops, flowers, still lifes and figures, boomeranging to earlier themes. And tennis balls. I have painted tennis balls for at least five years. I don’t think I ever paint the color accurately. It’s a funky color. There is a whole debate over the color of tennis balls. Are they yellow or are they green? I think that every tennis ball shifts between that range in the course of their life. They start off neon, like a toxic sludge, but once a ball starts to lose its fuzz and pick up the residue of whatever surface you’re playing on, they get dull. I would say they start off neon green and go more toward yellow over time.
Farah Al Qasimi, artist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
B Horror movies.
Bleached eyebrows. I don't have the right face for it.
My dear friends, Elle Pérez and Sarah Workneh (pictured here hugging during a double rainbow), are my sounding boards for all matters of work and life.
A clown suit + mask.
Journaled.
Tiwa Savage, musician
I’ve made peace with myself. I chose to no longer stress over the things I have no control over.
Megha Majumdar, novelist
I made a lot of food. I haven’t seen my parents in more than a year, as travel has been impossible, but I’ve felt close to my mother in cooking the Bengali dishes she made for us at home.
Karen Russell, novelist
I made a googly-eyed owl out of toilet paper rolls. It was supposed to be a collaboration with my 4-year-old son, but we had artistic differences and he left to be a Ninja Turtle. My baby daughter pulled the wings off, and now the owl looks the way we all feel. We’ve got our fingers crossed for the Whitney Biennial.
Ali Smith, novelist
A compost heap.
Sam Youkilis, photographer
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Aidy Bryant, actor and writer
We wrote, shot and edited the third season of “Shrill.” Weirdly, the endless parameters of Covid made us get creative in a way that helped the show.
Julia Bullock, classical singer
I recorded a voice/piano recital in Blaibach, a tiny village in Germany. It helped me begin to more clearly determine what I wanted to make of virtual concert settings — a hybrid between an album and a livestream experience.
Phoebe Bridgers, musician
I haven’t been able to face my writing head-on this year. If I were to write the way I normally do, which is just glorified complaining, it would be the same as every single other person. I don’t know what new experience I can bring to it, other than the fact that I had a pretty successful album cycle — which also nobody wants to hear about.
Brian Blomerth, illustrator
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Sheila Hicks, textile artist
I have never gotten so much work done! There are so few distractions or interruptions. Even if you choose to do nothing, you can do it with intensity.
Camille A. Brown, choreographer
I’ve created a mentorship program for Black artists. It brings together past and current dancers from my company; I always want them to feel like they have a home to go back to.
Anicka Yi, artist
Maintaining my studio is a lot like making an ongoing meta work of art. There is a myth about the redistribution of time during the pandemic, that we have fewer interruptions. I’ve experienced the opposite.
Young Jean Lee, playwright
I taught a free, three-hour playwriting workshop on Zoom that was based on the classes I teach. I was frustrated with the structures that make the theater industry inaccessible to low-income artists, and I wanted to give a wider audience access to the tools I’d picked up over the years. I’m tired of people thinking the only worthwhile art is being made in New York or L.A. or being fostered within expensive M.F.A. programs, when a first-time writer in Tuscaloosa could be inventing something even more interesting.
Nathaniel Russell, artist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Mike Birbiglia, comedian
The fundamental shift I made this year is taking my profession — live performance of my own comedy — and I digitized it. For every run of virtual shows we give a big donation to food banks. Which sort of encapsulates this year for me — how do I entertain people and support people who are struggling at the same time? This is what I came up with.
Sean Scully, artist
Lately, I have fallen in love with yellow. At the moment, I seem to be using it in every painting. I’m not sure I understand why, though maybe it offers a kind of protection against the cold, or against the sorrows of Covid. One of my new paintings is called “Yellow Yellow.” Another is called “Wall Orange” and has blurs of yellow and orange seeping into each other. Yellow is complicated.
Nico Muhly, composer
I found it, strangely, much easier to write things which were commissioned inside the confines of the pandemic than to finish things I’d been working on before.
Jenny Holzer, artist
I used my electric-sign fixation in service of the vote. I practiced applied art, maybe agitprop, for the elections. Also, I indulged in ugly watercolors on formerly secret documents, that I littered with filthy words. Women should swear more.
Miranda July, artist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Tracy Letts, playwright and actor
I’ve made nothing. On four separate occasions, I arranged my schedule with [my wife] Carrie so I could have six uninterrupted hours a day to write. All four times, I emerged from my office after two or three weeks, rattled, defeated, feeling lousy about myself. My wife finally said, “Here’s what you have to do: read books, watch movies, cook dinner and take care of our boy.” That is what I’ve done. And while my family is my focus and my joy, from a creative standpoint, this year for me has been a dust storm. I’m normally involved in a number of creative endeavors, in different forms, but the theater is my lifeblood and I don’t know who I am without it. The plug getting pulled on “The Minutes” was truly devastating for me. I feel like a heel even saying that since so many people in this country and around the world are suffering as a result of this pandemic in ways I can’t even fathom. But it’s the simple truth. I can’t do the computer theater, it’s too depressing for me, and I’ve turned down a couple of on-camera jobs because I am just as scared of this virus as I was a year ago. Creatively, I’m lost. It’s why I’m doing this interview. I’m guessing there are some other artists who identify.
2. What art have you turned to in this time?
Perfume Genius, the musician Mike Hadreas
In the beginning, I was listening to a lot of stuff I listened to when I was younger, revisiting music from when I was a teenager, like Green Day. It was just comforting. I didn’t feel like listening to “Dookie” just as, like, a 39-year-old man — I think it was something about remembering a time when I felt invulnerable.
Hayley Williams, musician
I’ve had such an emotional response to theater and classical art forms experienced only through little screens — namely, “Dancing at Dusk: A Moment With Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring,” and then there was the video that went viral of the Uceli Quartet performing for a packed house of nothing but plants at Liceu Opera in Barcelona. It was called “Concert for Biocene.” It made me cry.
Phoebe Bridgers, musician
I had never really dove into Gabriel García Márquez, and now I’m very deep into him. I read “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and “Love in the Time of Cholera.”
Maira Kalman, author and artist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Aidy Bryant, actor and writer
It’s been a very odd mix that I have chosen not to question: Listening to Liberace, watching ’90s “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” and “The Sopranos.”
Justin Peck, choreographer
I’ve been down a rabbit hole of the classic Golden Age of Hollywood — reading a lot about the era, and watching and rewatching a ton of films. Other than that, “I May Destroy You” was pretty mind-blowing.
Ali Smith, novelist
Everything from Beethoven to box sets. Right now it’s Six Bagatelles, “The Bureau” and “Call My Agent!” A profoundly meditative album called “Airs” by the composer Mhairi Hall, who takes ancient Scottish tunes and breathes her new air through them. Wynton Marsalis’s “The Democracy! Suite.” Ella Fitzgerald’s newly discovered “Berlin Tapes.” And the novels of Michelle de Kretser. Good writing, good music and the kind of story that opens and opens to more.
Jon Key, artist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
I have been reading 1920’s magazines and articles from the Harlem Renaissance: “Fire!! Devoted to Younger Negro Artists” and “Harlem: A Forum of Negro Life.”
I always think I can hold on and delay time!
My twin and artist Jarrett Key is always a source of inspiration!
My design studio Morcos Key designed “Black Futures,” a book edited by Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham.
I would have traveled the entire year! I miss Beirut and my family in Alabama.
Derek Delgaudio, magician
Run the Jewels and Francis Alÿs.
Tiwa Savage, musician
I must say, I’ve watched a lot of TV through this lockdown. I’m currently hooked on South Korean films and TV dramas.
Kyle Abraham, choreographer
A lot of “Survivor.” I thought, ‘OK. These are people that really can’t go anywhere.” Granted they’re going to win a million dollars whereas I might get sick and die. But I was into it.
Amanda Gorman, poet
I’ve been watching the Apple TV series “Dickinson.” Emily Dickinson spent so much of her life writing poetry in isolation, and as a young poetess quarantining I connect with it.
Christine Sun Kim, artist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Deaf people are among the most resourceful people I know when it comes to communication. I made videos and responded by signing with one hand. There is no audio and I added captions for non-ASL audiences.
Karen Russell, novelist
The most bewildering thing I’ve found myself doing during this pandemic is watching makeup tutorials. For reasons that genuinely mystify me, I have subscribed to the YouTube channel of a very charming makeup artist from Romania. She tells you which makeup brushes to splurge on and which to skip, and gives serious consideration to such questions as “to bronze or to contour?” I have never owned a makeup brush. My baby ate half of the lipstick I stole from my sister’s purse in 2017. I am 39, and I just learned what a “spoolie” is yesterday. Why does it relax me to watch a beautiful stranger buffing foundation into her chin? Why do we sell melted skin to one another in little bottles in the first place? I don’t know the answer to these questions.
Rachel Chavkin, director
Claire Denis’s work. Rewatching a lot of Spike Lee’s work around seeing “Da 5 Bloods.” “Watchmen” and “Fargo” (the series). Devouring “Killing Eve,” and rewatching “Fleabag.” “Lovecraft Country.” And a ton of beautiful films: “Mother of George,” “The Hero,” “First Cow” (which I’d missed despite loving Kelly Reichardt’s work), “Crip Camp” (couldn’t stop crying), “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” “Farewell Amor” and “Miss Juneteenth.”
Issa Rae, actor and writer
“The Daily” and “What’s Next” podcasts, lots of true crime and murder documentaries and, most recently, “Big Mouth.”
Raphaelle Macaron, illustrator
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Eddie Martinez, artist
I like to read about private investigators and how they operate. I would love to be a P.I. That’s definitely an alternate career choice. I like the obsession of it, the focus on details, the getting to the bottom of things.
Jenny Holzer, artist
I’ve seen more TikTok than ever before, and now want to be pretend young. I look at what lands in my inbox. William Kentridge succeeds reliably courtesy of his content and animation.
Camille A. Brown, choreographer
I’ve actually gotten into painting. I’ve always been inspired by painting shows, but I’m not a painter. It’s definitely something that I find calming. And it takes the pressure off dance.
Will Arbery, playwright
I’ve been finding inspiration in what might be called outsider music, especially Joanna Sternberg, Daniel Johnston, Johnnie Frierson, Moondog, Blaze Foley.
Alex Kalman, designer and journalist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
In Transylvania, a cobbler named Grigore Lup began making social distancing shoes. Inspiring. Entrepreneurial. Rational. And absurd.
I made a contraption in an attempt to fix a plumbing problem.
My wife. My mother. My sister. And my five-year-old niece, Olive. Olive knows what’s what. She knows what’s good and what’s bad. Knows what’s interesting and what’s a bore. Knows what’s worth one’s time and what isn’t. These are very important distinctions in life.
In New York City, the 17 exhibitions at Mmuseumm, which explores humanity and current events by using vernacular objects from around the world, have been accessible 24/7 throughout the pandemic.
As this sign points out, there is no turning back.
Tracy Letts, playwright and actor
Carrie and I would unwind by watching movies on our big screen in the basement. We watched a movie a night, sometimes a double feature, with “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” as a curtain raiser. We got such simple homey comfort from our movie nights. I have done some reading — I read “The Iliad” of all things, it seemed weirdly appropriate — but not as much as I should have. Concentration has been hard to come by.
Nan Goldin, photographer
I’ve tried to cook and bake with no great success.
Julia Bullock, classical singer
I’ve appreciated Jordan Firstman’s “impersonations”; the Netflix’s documentary series “Pretend It’s a City” with Fran Lebowitz. I watched all of the “Golden Girls” again; and some of the “coronavirus mixtape” compilations that Jeremy O. Harris posted on Instagram, assembled from various people’s social media channels.
Aaron Sorkin, writer and director
“The Crown” has been on a loop in my house.
Sinna Nasseri, photographer
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Jon Batiste, musician and composer
The culinary arts. I think that cooking food that brings you to a place and a time in your life is a real meditation, and you can practice it over and over again. It nourishes you both spiritually and physically.
Tayari Jones, novelist
I’ve really been looking at the quilts of Faith Ringgold. I’ve always been an admirer — all the detail and storytelling that she’s able to do with pieces of fabric.
Katori Hall, playwright and screenwriter
Pole dancing. I can spend hours and hours looking at women and men dancing. Their art form has always inspired me.
Megha Majumdar, novelist
A little bit of bedtime reading each night has been a place of respite. I’ve loved books like Shruti Swamy’s “A House Is a Body,” Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s “American Harvest,” and Akwaeke Emezi’s “The Death of Vivek Oji.”
Giorgia Lupi, information designer
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Trent Reznor, musician and composer
I’ve stumbled into the world of YouTube tutorials for various bits of musical gear. I’ve really found some comfort in curling up with a nice long video of someone demonstrating an obscure guitar pedal or synth at length. I’m usually watching and forgetting all information simultaneously but it feels like some kind of accomplishment.
Mike Birbiglia, comedian
I’ve actually dug into some soccer documentaries. Some of my favorites are “The Class of ’92” and the Diego Maradona documentary on HBO. From an escapism perspective, it’s just dazzling to watch people score from half field, and bicycle kick, and pull off all of these mind-bending tricks. I started showing soccer videos to my daughter and she loved it. But one day she said, “Do girls play soccer too?” And I was mortified. So from that point on I’ve only been showing her women’s soccer videos. I actually think she’s forgotten that men play soccer at all.
Glen Keane, animator and director
I focused on the manzanita bushes growing wild on our Lake Arrowhead mountain property. I began to learn the art of pruning.
Anicka Yi, artist
My appetite for education was my constant companion. Artists are lifelong learners so I spent most of the past year reading copious amounts on history, the collapse of complex civilizations, critical race theory and biotechnology.
Jamar Roberts, choreographer
The art that I have turned to at this time is my own work. Being able to continue to do the work that I love has been my absolute saving grace during this time.
Jean Jullien, illustrator
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Young Jean Lee, playwright
I’ve been revisiting films by Korean directors like Bong Joon Ho, Park Chan-wook, and Yeon Sang-ho. I’ve been thinking a lot about how Korea has experienced so much invasion, occupation and oppression over the past century, and all the subsequent intergenerational trauma. It can lead to a lot of darkness pushed to absurd lengths, which you see in the films.
Sharon Horgan, actor and writer
I started watching all the films I should’ve watched, trying to discover old classics and dig into new directors. I was really delighted with myself. I was like, “This is how you use it.” Then I went off the rails. I switched to, “What I really should be doing is watching murder documentaries.” When the world is grim like that, you look for something that is even worse.
Nico Muhly, composer
In the beginning, I tried to do it all. I watched things on Arté, I watched all those Met Opera broadcasts, I tuned in to every Zoom podcast. I think I might have even done one or two. At a certain point, I couldn’t handle it anymore. Since May, I haven’t really read or watched anything new, in favor of revisiting old favorites. I’m slowly making my way through the 14th-century Wycliffe translation of the Old Testament, I watched “Rosemary’s Baby” about eight times, “The Wicker Man,” the very long versions of the “Lord of the Rings” movies.
3. Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Phoebe Bridgers, musician
I did write the word “quarantine” into a song, which then I’ll probably write out because nobody wants to hear it. I have it in one of my earlier songs, too. When I was 19 or something, I remember being like, “Ooh, quarantine, that’s a word you never hear in songs but sounds cool and it’s super goth.” And then after hearing it every day for so long, I’m just like, I never want to hear so many of these words ever again.
Justin Peck, choreographer
Early on in the pandemic, my wife, Patricia Delgado, and I would do a ballet barre in the confinement of our apartment, but then would immediately race out to Riverside Park to finish up our daily dance regimen with a combination of jogging and ballet grand allegro steps. We would be jeté-ing and tumbling “Frances Ha” style down the park promenade. It was a total blast — until it gave us really bad shin splints.
Aidy Bryant, actor and writer
My bad ideas were usually bad because they were not funny because I was depressed.
Jonathan Djob Nkondo, artist and animator
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Aaron Sorkin, writer and director
I have to have a thousand bad ideas before I can get to a good one.
Julia Bullock, classical singer
I’m just grateful for any ideas or sparks of inspiration that come — bad, good, silly, ambitious — even ideas that I can’t fully commit to at this present time.
Issa Rae, actor and writer
I don’t believe in bad ideas, just bad execution. So did I have any badly executed ideas that I ruined? Yes. I’ll blame them on pandemic production constraints.
Tayari Jones, novelist
I thought I could try and do a new art form, and I bought all this stuff for drawing: I bought sketch pads, I bought those expensive pencils, and I decided that I was going to learn to draw. I really sucked at it. And I find it’s hard on my self-esteem to do things in which I suck. I had to let the drawing go.
Ali Smith, novelist
Putting the compost heap so close to the kitchen windows.
Lexie Smith, artist and breadmaker
I killed my goldfish. His name was Feldspar. It’s really a metaphorical reckoning for me: In the beginning of quarantine I took aquatic plants from a friend, along with some teeny tiny snails that lived in the water with them, and put it all in my goldfish’s tank in an effort to cheer up his living environment. Soon the plants were monstrous and the snails were enormous and plentiful, and my goldfish could no longer swim. Eventually I decided the only ethical choice was to deliver him to his end. Why did I do this to him? He never asked for anything. The whole thing made me question my ability to visualize a better future or nurture anything.
Tracy Letts, playwright and actor
I had the bad idea to engage in social media but I fought that one off.
Katori Hall, playwright and screenwriter
Ordering a couch during the pandemic. It took four months to arrive, and I had never sat on it, but once I did, it was so uncomfortable, so I had to send it back. Then I ordered another one and had to wait another three months.
Iman Raad, painter
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Lynn Nottage, playwright
I began brewing my own kombucha, only to discover that I don’t like it as much as I thought I did. The mother is still hovering in a Mason jar waiting to be liberated.
Amanda Gorman, poet
I’m writing a book, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started over from scratch. But the bad ideas lead to the best ones. Sometimes you have to break down to break through.
Trent Reznor, musician and composer
Once lockdown kicked in and we had a moment to realize the scale of disruption ahead — that this wouldn’t be weeks but months — I thought it would be a great time to immerse myself in a masterwork of some sort. Something deep, thoughtful and requiring a significant amount of uninterrupted time to think through. A new opus record … maybe a musical? Now’s the time! In my head this was a perfect response to the circumstances at hand. The problem soon revealed itself in the form of no real inspiration or motivation: two elements I’ve found tend to come in handy when attempting to create. After a period of looking at blank pages and frustration, I made a conscious decision to allow myself to try to feel OK about “just getting by.”
Karen Russell, novelist
Thinking I could watch a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old while also participating on Zoom calls with students; I have a bleary memory of watching our baby feeding bread to the houseplants while her brother stood on the kitchen table, feral and naked, and thinking to myself, well, at least I can angle the camera.
4. What’s a moment from this year you’ll always remember?
Makaya McCraven, musician
I don’t know if I’ll ever forget washing a bag of Doritos in my sink with Clorox.
Phoebe Bridgers, musician
I’ve read a lot of studies saying that it’s going to be hard to have memories of this year, because it all just feels like the same day. When you do different things, they stand out in your memory and that’s how you remember things. A lot of it feels like the same day. There are some standout moments, though. I remember when John Prine died [in April], that was the deepest, darkest part of Covid. But there were definitely some highs, like getting to play “S.N.L.,” and just seeing my band again.
Jason Fulford, photographer
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Jon Batiste, musician and composer
Leading the march in Union Square to Herald Square during the Black Lives Matter protest. That was the least cautious that I’ve ever been in this quarantine period, but it was worth it.
Issa Rae, actor and writer
The uprisings at the end of May, beginning of June. Protesting for the first time in my life. The raw feelings of anger, hurt, dread and frustration that I shared with my peers. The sudden urgency companies and individuals felt to acknowledge injustice and the peek into how quickly change can actually happen when the pressure is on.
Tayari Jones, novelist
I will never forget the feeling of watching the people in England pull down the statue [of the slave trader Edward Colston] and throw it into the harbor. It was such an international moment, it was a Pan-African moment. I knew that the statues needed to come down — I was never ambivalent about that at all — but I was surprised at the sense of sheer triumph. It was incredible to see something that was at once so symbolic yet so tangible.
Mona Chalabi, artist and data journalist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Sharon Horgan, actor and writer
I really want to give you a grim one. I’ve had all of those moments — locking in my bathroom, and having the door kicked in. It’s actually when I went to Ireland in August. I was so desperate for family and air and something else. We went swimming in a place called the Forty Foot — just jumping into that crazy mad dangerous water surrounded by women in bathing caps was gorgeous.
Lynn Nottage, playwright
During the summer, my family took an impulsive RV trip in an old Holiday Rambler. It awakened a desire to roam, and opened up new routes to explore at a moment when we were feeling very trapped.
Karen Russell, novelist
For nine days, our neighborhood in Southeast Portland had the worst A.Q.I. [Air Quality Index] rating in the world. Our daughter’s nursery smelled like smoke, and I’ll never forget the helpless feeling of pacing her room at night, watching these fires advancing. Because the whole state was ablaze, and we were seven months into the pandemic, escape felt impossible. My 3-year-old was convinced that the sun had turned into an asteroid. The sky turned orange, then a cemetery gray. I write about climate change and man-made disasters in the Anthropocene, but I’ve never felt so viscerally, with every lungful of air, that the bill was coming due.
Hannah La Follette Ryan, photographer
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Architecture. Architecturally significant buildings have stayed relatively accessible, not in a position to “close” due to Covid unlike museums and galleries.
One terrible idea I had this year was deciding to obsessively consume the news every morning at the expense of my mental health.
My best friend, roommate and artist Robbie Trocchia. He is my emergency contact and first audience. Having that relationship built into my pandemic experience was a lifeline.
My roommates and I made this grocery list while under lockdown in May.
I would have spent more time in the sun, stockpiling vitamin D.
Megha Majumdar, novelist
I’m not sure if it was the moment when we learned about doctors struggling to get masks or the moment we crossed 300,000 dead, but that feeling of knowing that the people in power didn’t care one bit for the people they were meant to serve. I’ll remember that.
Justin Peck, choreographer
When Biden/Harris won the presidential election, and all of New York City cheered collectively for what seemed like that entire day. The fact that we have our nation’s first woman and woman-of-color vice president is arguably the best thing to come out of this year.
Nico Muhly, composer
I had been having an awful, soul-crushing day of artistic torpor, and was “celebrating” by buying socks in the abandoned Uniqlo on 34th street when they called the election for Biden. The staff and I were all screaming and dancing around. I walked up to Times Square, which was initially deserted and then filled up as if in a time-lapse video. Within five minutes, the whole of New York was there: a man on a Segway with a three-legged corgi, the Naked Cowboy, some gay people turned up in Daisy Dukes with “Kamala” glitter-gunned onto the bottoms. A man had a jeroboam of champagne and started pouring it into plastic cups. I think it was the first time I’d been genuinely, three-dimensionally happy in months.
New York Nico, artist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
I’m not sure you would consider it an art, but throughout the pandemic I’ve learned how to utilize Instagram as a way to help others.
I put my 74-year-old friend on an ATV for a Knicks commercial I produced. I won’t say it was my worst idea, but it definitely wasn’t my best.
Somehow I’ve made more meaningful friendships during the pandemic than I have in any other year. Trent and Jack of Sidetalk and AP the Angel are just three of the many people I am proud to call my friends.
I teamed up with the MTA to create new safety announcements for the subway and bus.
I would have spent more time with Green Lady!
Eddie Martinez, artist
We had a baby right before the pandemic started. My wife, Sam Moyer, is also an artist. Arthur is now 16 months old. He is amazing. He is super inspirational. He is open and light and keeps everything exciting. I used to work on weekends, but I don’t do that now because it’s family time. We have something much bigger than ourselves to think about.
Julia Bullock, classical singer
Maybe my wedding anniversary? My husband and I sat at the piano and played through all of “The Sound of Music” on a whim.
Will Arbery, playwright
For my birthday this year, I was with my three best friends on an island in the middle of Lake Michigan. There was a big rainstorm that day. We rode bikes to an old lighthouse. We explored it while getting soaked by the rain. Then we all climbed an enormous tree. My parents called me while I was up there, shielded by the big branches, and my sister Julia sang me “Happy Birthday.” I was happy.
Ebony Flowers, cartoonist and ethnographer
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Sheila Hicks, textile artist
It’s been wonderful here in Paris. We got rid of all the tourists. Everything stopped. The clocks stopped, except the sun kept coming up at the same time, so we ended up going out into our courtyard and making the acquaintance of our other seven neighbors. It was very new, because the French have a tendency to stay to themselves, to respect each other’s privacy or even secrecy. But a door opened and the barriers broke down. We became mutually supportive.
Sean Scully, artist
I’ve enjoyed following my son’s science classes on Zoom. It’s been interesting for me to learn the position of the planets, which I still haven’t memorized.
Young Jean Lee, playwright
I got married in December, so I’ll always remember that!
Stefan Marx, artist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Glen Keane, animator and director
I’ll never forget recording our score at Synchron Stage Studios in Vienna with our composer Steven Price. Steven and I both joined in remotely by way of Zoom. Recording started at 1 a.m. California time and lasted til noon the next day. This went on for weeks. I became a night owl and found those normally quiet hours of the night to be some of the most creatively invigorating moments of my life.
Camille A. Brown, choreographer
Seeing my company. We’re doing a residency; we’re going to be quarantined for five weeks. When we got the green light it was like: Wow, I can be inspired again by the people I love. I haven’t been around that in almost a year. It’s thrilling.
Anicka Yi, artist
2020 was the year I finally got my wish, to be bored, I mean really, really bored of the monotony of every day bleeding into the next. Living in New York for 24 years, it’s been virtually impossible to be bored for any sustained period.
Jennifer Daniel, emoji expert
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Mike Birbiglia, comedian
We took my 5-year-old daughter Oona snow tubing. One time, Oona and I went down the hill together and the snow tube just kept going and going and going, and I realized we were about to slide into this little pond, which is not the best place to bring your snow tube. So my brain went into panic mode, and I pushed my hand against the ground until we stopped moving. Anyway, I saved our lives and until now I’m the only person who knows that. Oona just knows that we were going fast and it was really fun. Which is sort of a metaphor for the entire pandemic with kids — you only tell them what they need to know.
Jenny Holzer, artist
The focus on laundry, bleak bad humor, shouting at the television and watching unnecessary death.
Rachel Chavkin, director
Having a weeping anxiety attack as I was flying to visit my son and his dads (I was a surrogate for two best friends in 2019), and the flight was surprisingly full, and I didn’t know whether to get on the plane (I did), and feeling so excruciatingly the disappointment and sorrow and distance that has been agonizing for so many families in this country and around the world.
Lucas Blalock, artist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Aaron Sorkin, writer and director
The sight of 43 senators being able to stand and walk in spite of their spines being made of oatmeal.
Tracy Letts, playwright and actor
Cornball stuff with my little boy and, you know, fascism.
Amanda Gorman, poet
Hands down performing at the inauguration. I’ll cherish that memory for forever — stepping up onto a little box (I was too short for the podium), opening my binder, and staring out at the National Mall, just as the sun came out in all its winter glory.
5. Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
Derek Delgaudio, magician
I have a friend who talks to birds and appears in other people’s dreams. We have socially distanced coffees and take walks through the city.
Amanda Gorman, poet
I started email pen-palling with Taylor Beidler, a London-based writer, for almost two years now. When quarantine started, we initiated a new ritual with my poet friend Najya Williams: FaceTiming every Saturday for what we call “Writerly Support.” We use it to vent and discuss our deepest insecurities about our work and careers.
Nan Goldin, photographer
A young trans woman writer named Thora came to live with me to keep me safe and sane. I picked up the camera to photograph her after many years of primarily making work from my archive and not taking pictures.
Ari Melenciano, creative technologist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Tayari Jones, novelist
I’ve grown even closer to my mentor, Pearl Cleage. I meet with her on her porch once a month. Her husband goes out of his way to make it nice; he even pours our wine.
Aaron Dessner, musician and producer
Taylor Swift was the main one. I think she said that “Folklore” was this life raft for us, emotionally and creatively. I think that’s the beauty of this time — the way that communities of artists have adapted and been able to work remotely, so everyone’s in their bedroom with a microphone, and you can actually get a lot done really quickly.
Jon Batiste, musician and composer
Pete Docter, the chief creative officer of Pixar. We share playlists and different things that are inspiring us on any given day. He sent me some Chick Corea today. I sent him a Billy Strayhorn solo piano record that I hadn’t heard before.
Liana Finck, comic artist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Lynn Nottage, playwright
My husband has been my lifeboat. We have spent an impossible amount of time together this year, and it is amazing that we still miss each other when one of us leaves the room.
Sheila Hicks, textile artist
I haven’t seen my husband [who lives in New York, while Hicks is in Paris] in a year. We talk on the phone every night, around 10 o’clock. We’ve made friends with each other. We don’t argue. We have a whole different rapport! When we’re together, we’re usually deliberating over “what are we doing this evening,” and “what are we doing on Tuesday.” None of that exists anymore. There’s no more negotiation!
6. If you’d known that you’d be so isolated for so long, what would you have done differently?
Perfume Genius, the musician Mike Hadreas
In the beginning I was scrambling all the time. How can I take all the ideas I had before this happened and do some version of them now? Instead of trying to invent something new that made sense with the circumstances. I was trying really hard not to do a half-assed version of what I would’ve done if this wasn’t happening. So, I think I would’ve just relaxed on myself and relaxed on this a little bit.
Karen Russell, novelist
My daughter was 5 months old last February, and I’d just moved to Austin for a visiting teaching position. I was so exhausted that I only went out a few times, and now I wish that I had gone to dine-in movie theaters and packed comedy clubs and Catholic Mass and taco trucks and dancing with my husband at Donn’s Depot.
Young Jean Lee, playwright
I would have traveled to see my mother right before things shut down and filled her freezer with food. Whenever I visit her, I cook tons of food, and the idea of her freezer being empty of my cooking really sucks.
Lexie Smith, artist and breadmaker
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
The Drawing Center had a great show of 100 drawings from the past year that I felt really lucky to see, and I spent a lot of time making my own. If I had to sum it up: dear god, really anything not on Instagram Live.
Oh, yes. For one, and this may sound really trivial considering the multitude of loss that’s characterized the last year, I killed my goldfish.
There was my guy, the birds, a lamb, snakes, wheat plants from seed to stalk (I spent many hours speaking to them), so many women, especially my twin sister: We are identical and feel most alike in the ways we succumb to dizzying grief and anxiety, so we know how to pull each other out of it best.
I grew a field of wheat and oats, and harvested and processed the whole thing by hand. I filmed myself for 12 hours dehulling some of the emmer with my thumbnails, and made two tiny bread bricks out of the resulting flour.
Accepted every invitation to go dancing, gotten my driver’s license before the DMV shut down, did more hands-on teaching and invited those acquaintances that could have been close friends over for dinner and hand-fed them.
Tig Notaro, comedian
This is an over the top fantasy situation, but I would’ve maybe tried to plan with a group of friends or family, “Should we all go in on this together and ride it out?” It probably would’ve been nicer to have a big, crazy free-for-all with a bunch of people and be there together.
Aaron Sorkin, writer and director
I’d have made sure I was in Hawaii when the shutdown started.
Amanda Gorman, poet
I think if I could go back in time and give myself a message, it would be to reiterate that my value as an artist doesn’t come from how much I create. I think that mind-set is yoked to capitalism. Being an artist is about how and why you touch people’s lives, even if it’s one person. Even if that’s yourself, in the process of art-making.
Yoshi Sodeoka, artist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Phoebe Bridgers, musician
If you told me a year ago, you’re actually going to be inside for a year and you’re not going to tour and eventually you will just not even think about tour — I probably would have screamed. But I wish I could have just given myself the comfort of knowing this is what it’s going to be, this is how long it’s going to be, here’s you in a year, relax. Stop refreshing The New York Times.
Nico Muhly, composer
I had a moment of absolute shock at how financially ill-prepared I was for something like this. I think it’s really important — if vulgar — to point out that freelancers are freelancers, and if you don’t work, you don’t get paid; it doesn’t matter if you’re the biggest star in the world or just getting started. Being in the middle of a global financial and health crisis but still having to find money to pay my criminally extortionate H.M.O. — who raised their premiums in the middle of this! — was demoralizing and brain-skewering in a truly surprising way.
Kyle Abraham, choreographer
I would’ve probably taken sewing classes. It seems very random, it’s the thing that’s always been of interest to me.
Na Kim, graphic designer
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
“Bottomless Bag,” an exhibition for children.
Depression.
My family, of course.
A self-reflection tester.
More ideas on daily spaces.
Aidy Bryant, actor and writer
I wish I would have sent some letters. In the past few weeks I sent a few little Valentines and I wish I would have thought about doing that earlier.
Megha Majumdar, novelist
I would have gone on more hikes the previous summer and fall. I am very bad at hiking — it’s not an activity I grew up with — but I love my own slow pace of being in the mountains, where I can be attentive to ferns and mushrooms and berries and insects.
Issa Rae, actor and writer
Planned to take more road trips and isolate in different cities or houses. Worked in more places that are not my home.
Will Arbery, playwright
Deactivated my Twitter.
7. What do you want to achieve before things return to normal?
Hayley Williams, musician
I still don’t know how to estimate what the practical amount of groceries for my household should look like. They don’t teach you that on tour. Every night in my kitchen is like an episode of “Chopped.”
Aaron Sorkin, writer and director
Living long enough to see that happen.
Ali Smith, novelist
I think normal’s gone. If I chance to be lucky enough to pass safely from here to something that can be called a new normality, I want to be ready for the different place we’ll be in, I want to be up to the challenge and the change.
Daniel Arnold, photographer
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Issa Rae, actor and writer
Maybe take a cross-country road trip? Otherwise, I’ve done all I can and want to do. Normal me, please!
Justin Peck, choreographer
I’ve been spending a lot of time writing. Usually I’m up against very intense deadlines. But now, for the first time in decades, I have been able to step back, zoom out, take a deep breath, and think more substantially in terms of the future kind of work I would like to eventually make.
Lynn Nottage, playwright
I want to bring closure to the many unfinished thoughts that need endings.
Igor Bastidas, illustrator
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
Perfume Genius, the musician Mike Hadreas
I’m kind of trying to crawl back out again, in a working way. Even if it’s still virtual and things don’t change for a while, I feel like I’ve gathered up enough grieving and anxiety. So, I will push myself now to work within all this.
Will Arbery, playwright
What I miss most of all is the physical act of making. Collaborating with real people in a real room. Before that happens, I just need to finish all these blueprints for future physical making.
Phoebe Bridgers, musician
I am getting a little stressed imagining the world opening up. I also think my nightmare would be to play shows where people have to have a wristband that means they’ve been vaccinated. I don’t really want to go back into the half-world. So maybe before everything’s totally back to normal I will disappear into myself and have some sort of creative epiphany. I think it would make me feel like this time is done.
Andre Wagner, photographer
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
Katori Hall, playwright and screenwriter
I don’t think things will return to normal. I’m more interested in establishing new habits to move into the new normal. I also should just finish my novel.
Rachel Chavkin, director
I am going to relearn how to use a sewing machine — I worked in a costume shop at the Olney Theater in high school, and had an amazing supervisor there who taught me to sew on doll patterns. I really want to make a quilt.
Glen Keane, animator and director
I’m looking forward to creating some hand-drawn animation from my Lake Arrowhead home studio.
Chase Hall, artist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
A piece by Rhea Dillon titled “Atlas’ Duppeee Whoopeee Seat: women should stop cleaning faeces, everyone should clean faeces,” 2020
DIY therapy.
I am my mother’s son.
A sculpture titled “A Malleable History.”
Spend more time learning the organ.
Mike Birbiglia, comedian
Before the pandemic I was actually writing a film that took place in a global pandemic so in a lot of ways this event has been the fulfillment of my deepest fears. Which is to say that if I’m able to make it out the other side I will have learned that I can face one of my deepest fears and, with a lot of luck, endure. So I think the answer is, um, to survive.
Jamar Roberts, choreographer
I would like to experiment more with dance for film. I’m not sure if it is something that will stick around once theaters reopen.
Julia Bullock, classical singer
Honestly, when I reflect on the quests for human “achievement” the results have been pretty devastating. But what do I want to achieve? I just want to live each day more harmoniously.
Maia Ruth Lee, artist and educator
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
I’ve been turning to poetry, works of Etel Adnan and Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, both poets introduced to me by close friends.
Yes, but nothing is a throw-away.
I wrote a lot of letters and gained some pen pals as well during the pandemic. Letter writing became an important practice for me and was also included in my recent show at MCA Denver.
A new body of work titled “The Language of Grief” shown at MCA Denver.
Absolutely nothing.
Aaron Dessner, musician and producer
The band has been talking a lot about, “Well what do we want to do when life resumes?” Because this has been interesting not to be away from our families all the time, to not always be living out of a suitcase. That has been our job, that’s the way we’ve supported ourselves, by traveling around the world and playing music. It’s really fun, but we’ve done it for 20 years, so hopefully there’s some way to balance things going forward and have more time at home.
Tayari Jones, novelist
I’m really trying not to put pressure on myself to achieve any particular thing besides just surviving, getting through this time. My daddy is 84, my mother’s about 76. They live here in Atlanta, and I moved home so that I could be closer to them, and my job is to make sure that they get through this pandemic and that they have what they need. When this is all done, I want to look at my healthy parents, and I will have done my job.
Nico Muhly, composer
I don’t think there is a return to normal in the performing arts, I’m sorry to say. We have to make a new normal, and build a lot of it from scratch. This period has shone light on an unbelievable amount of baked-in inequality and rotten practices rooted in the foundation of everything we do.
Sho Shibuya, artist
What art have you turned to in this time?
Did you have any particularly bad ideas?
Did you find a friendship that sustained you artistically?
What’s one thing you made this year?
What would you have done differently?
News and nature, these are the two things I got inspiration from throughout the year.
A piece I painted on September 28th, 2020. I did not post it, I thought this expression was too literal.
My wife and best friend Grace. I always ask her opinion before I post my work.
A thousand paper cranes are often given to an ill person to wish for their recovery. If I had developed three cranes per day, I would have already reached 1000 people.
Karen Russell, novelist
If there’s one lesson that I hope to carry forward from this difficult time, it’s that for millions of Americans, “normal” life was already a chronic state of emergency. So I hope we can change the lexicon, and redefine what “normal” is — I hope that in my children’s lifetime, “normal” comes to mean that we treat health care and housing and parental leave as basic human rights.
Aidy Bryant, actor and writer
Achieve full and total mental health, record an album about my dog, write four books, lots of museum worthy paintings, write the perfect sketch and get my parents vaccinated.
Jon Batiste, musician and composer
More balance.
"bad" - Google News
March 11, 2021 at 11:03AM
https://ift.tt/3bAF3YD
75 Artists, 7 Questions, One Very Bad Year - The New York Times
"bad" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2SpwJRn
https://ift.tt/2z7gkKJ
No comments:
Post a Comment