How are each of you? What a change we have experienced in such a short amount of time! This letter is to reach out and provide some general updates from my studio as well as a bit of inspiration to hopefully keep your spirits up during this time.
This is the first edition in a series of "Friday Letters." It comes from a PDF I downloaded yesterday from Jamie Varon about how to work from home. She mentioned that she has been sending out Friday Letters as a regular practice for many years and I loved the idea. So here is your first letter, from me to you! If you want the work from home survival guide, the download link is below!
https://www.courses.jamievaron.com/work-from-home-survival-guide
As you are probably aware...because what isn't closed right now?...both The Clyfford Still Museum and Artworks are closed to the public until further notice. I can fortunately still access my studio and am looking forward to some uninterrupted painting time. The museum has also been kind enough to offer part-time workers off-site tasks for us to complete remotely in order to maintain our hours. This is greatly appreciated, even though it is a bit of a learning curve as to how to work at a desk all day! 
I do have exciting news to report. I will be hosting One Painting at a Time on June 2nd, 2020 at The Clyfford Still Museum. This is a long-standing event at the museum in which a guest speaker selects one painting from Still's collection and leads an in-depth discussion of the painting. I am honored and excited! Fingers crossed, the museum will be open! If not, I will be among the first to do OPAAT virtually!
At Artworks, Jennie Kiessling and I are planning a slow art weekend workshop. It was originally slated for April 4th and 5th to coincide with slow art day, on April 4th. This workshop is now postponed until the fall, but I highly recommend investigating slow art day. There likely will be a number of online activities this year! Here is a little history of the movement: https://www.slowartday.com/about/history/
Finally, I am currently re-reading Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It is rich with inspiration and also feels incredibly timely and relevant. The first stage of the hero's journey is separation from the familiar.
...the purpose of and actual effect of these [ritual separations in traditional societies]
was to conduct people across those difficult thresholds of transformation that demand a change in the patterns not only of conscious but also of unconscious life.
Rites of passage...are distinguished by formal, and usually very severe, exercises of severance, whereby the mind is radically cut away from the attitudes, attachments and life patterns of the stage left behind. Then follows an interval of more or less extended retirement, during which are enacted rituals designed to introduce the life adventurer to the forms and proper feelings of his new estate, so that when, at last, the time has ripened for the return to the normal world, the initiate will be as good as reborn.
Joseph Campbell, Hero with a Thousand Faces, p. 10
All of a sudden, I can't leave my house, what will I do if there is no toilet paper, or worse, me or someone I know gets the virus and then what?
But, maybe in a few weeks, there is a settling into the idea that confronting ourselves is the task, the only option once all distractions of Starbucks, over-working, over-doing, and worrying about things beyond our control are gone. And in fact, in doing that very thing of slowing down and meeting ourselves we might just discover a wealth of treasures that were hidden underneath the busy. I'd love to hear your thoughts and how you are managing this transition!
Be well, breathe, read, and even make some art!
Jen