Precinct Reporter Group News

Top Menu

  • Precinct Reporter News
  • Food
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy Policy

Main Menu

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Read Our E-Edition
  • ADVERTISE
  • Subscribe
Sign in / Join

Login

Welcome! Login in to your account
Lost your password?

Lost Password

Back to login
  • Precinct Reporter News
  • Food
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy Policy

logo

Precinct Reporter Group News

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Read Our E-Edition
  • ADVERTISE
  • Subscribe
  • Black Rose Awards Set For Sat., February 4

  • OC Black History Parade & Unity Festival

  • LBCC Students Get Ready for Male Success Initiative

  • Advocates Address Rise in Suicide for Black Males

  • Cops Search Black Teens 6X More Than White Peers

Latest PRGNews
Home›Latest PRGNews›Artists Reimagine the Times During Pandemic

Artists Reimagine the Times During Pandemic

By Precinct Reporter News
April 30, 2020
1970
0
Share:

By Dianne Anderson

Since the shutdown of all open artistic spaces, creative types everywhere are mastering their muse toward a digital flair.

They’re live streaming their craft, they’re developing and holding online art classes. They’re virtually reimagining the possibilities from afar.

Within her field, artist Jennifer Kane has been inspired to see the rapid reorganization of how events and gatherings are coming together despite Covid-19 constraints. Fundraisers keep arts and businesses alive. Online auctions are cropping up with the sale of individual works.

It’s been both exhilarating, and unnerving. She said the Arts Connection have also pivoted their in-person exhibition to an online platform during the pandemic.

“We launched a website with art for sale. We figured out how to host a second Saturday open mic and virtual performances for two hours,” said Kane, executive director of Arts Connection, which is The Arts Council of San Bernardino County.

For now, and well into the future, she feels the key is staying responsive to technology, and learning to engage the public from a distance. Shifting art to virtual classrooms and online education is another long-term focus.

“How do we continue to pay artists for their time if their in-person services are no longer required?” she asks. “We’re starting to think about that in the field. We’re looking at how to encourage artists to be their own advocate for their work and the amount of time they put in.”

Despite the quarantine, artists are upbeat as they develop their technology skills. She said more art classes are going online for the public that might not have otherwise been available.

Economic sustainability is another great concern. Usually, artists are self-employed as adjunct teachers with side gigs, but so many gigs and events have been canceled or postponed. She said professionals with art career teaching positions in secondary or higher education are fortunate to keep their jobs, but they are also adapting to the new life.

“Because this is considered a natural disaster, there’s now pandemic unemployment assistance, PUA, that opens up unemployment to the self-employed for the first time,” she added. “April 28 is when applications [open]for unemployed is now going to be extended.”

Art Connection is also advocating for more relief efforts to provide policy language that applies to self-employed within creative industries, especially caring for performers that will be hit with the loss of money and contracts until the public gathers together again for shows and concerts.

In these times, she emphasizes the world leans on the arts for inspiration, for the painters, the writers. Until there are better models to deal with creative sustainability, she believes that society must give them support.

“I feel like we as a society need to band together to say how can we think of creative ways to keep our dancers, our writers and our painters employed,” she said.

Some relief funding and support have been made available for arts in other metropolitan areas, such as Los Angeles and the Bay Area, but she emphasizes that support shouldn’t just be available in times of crisis. It should be sustainable, and flow down through policies and structures from the county government down to cities, neighborhoods, and into individual homes.

“The way we talk about art as vital to the community well-being, it’s just at the heart of who we are as human beings,” she said.

Kathryn Ervin, a professor in the CSUSB Department of Theatre Arts, is also hearing from her poetic colleagues and playwrights that they’re using the isolated downtime to produce more works, get through their writing, research and constructing.

But for collaborative artists, the shutdown has been much harder.

Musicians can rehearse online, but they can’t rehearse everything. The symphony, for instance, is hard to virtually perform because of a time-lapse. A uniform vibe will be a challenge.

“In the theater, we’re kind of flummoxed here,” Prof. Ervin said.

Right now, they are in the production of “Once Upon a Mattress.” Actors are still learning the music, rehearsals are ongoing, and they’ve read through rehearsals using Zoom, she said.

Some of the body of work is being captured on film to build up the archive of the play come fall. She hopes by the time they return in September or October, they can present a concert version or realized version of the play in some way.

Other colleagues are taking a similar approach, moving whatever was planned for the spring to the fall production. It solves a couple of problems, but not all.

They must have access to the theaters.

“Will we be able to rehearse together and put the show together and come back in the fall and present it online? Everyone will be in masks, and the masks will be real masks,” she said.

At the same time, there is an air of optimism. At least for the technology side, artists are being creative in ways they never envisioned. Stories will be captured of inspiration, of the struggle, and courage today that will resonate through society for a long time to come.

Recently, she was talking to colleagues about how this time in life calls for inventive ways to survive.

“You’ve seen all the pictures in New York of those who stand on the porch and sing all together. Things like that are going to have to be the way,” she said. “There’s still a world out there, there’s still people in it, face masks and all. There’s still socialization happening in these very small ways.”

For more information on PUA, see

<https://edd.ca.gov/about_edd/coronavirus-2019/pandemic-unemployment-assistance.htm>

TagsArtsArts Connectionlivestreamsprecinct reporterSan Bernardino Countyvirtual rehearsals
Previous Article

CAP Pushes Census Count to Meet Heavy ...

Next Article

COVID-19 Testing Options Expand in Long Beach

0
Shares
  • 0
  • +
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Precinct Reporter News

Related articles More from author

  • Latest PRGNews

    Black Press Honors Black Lives Matter Founder

    March 21, 2019
    By Precinct Reporter News
  • Latest PRGNews

    2019 Oscars: Black Filmmakers Win Big

    February 28, 2019
    By Precinct Reporter News
  • Latest PRGNews

    Leyva Names Project Sister NonProfit of the Year

    June 13, 2019
    By Precinct Reporter News
  • Latest PRGNews

    Annual Founder’s Kwanzaa Message

    December 26, 2019
    By Precinct Reporter News
  • Latest PRGNews

    Financial Challenges from Lack of Affordable Health Care

    July 22, 2021
    By Precinct Reporter News
  • Latest PRGNews

    Music Changing Lives Charity Ball 4 A Cause

    August 29, 2019
    By Precinct Reporter News

You might be interested

  • Latest PRGNews

    Youth and Adult Paid Training Programs

  • Latest PRGNews

    Black Chamber Black History Art Exhibit Goes Virtual

  • Latest PRGNews

    Rep. Maxine Waters to Chair House Finance Committee

Ads

Advertise with us!

Ads ||

Ads |

ADS III

Find us on Facebook

Ads

Precinct Reporter News Group

Your local news resource for 50 years in the Inland Empire, Orange County, Long Beach and surrounding areas!

To subscribe or advertise, call 909.889.0597

About us

  • Broadcasting & Media Production Company
    357 W. 2nd Street
    San Bernardino, California, CA 92401
  • mailto:sales@precinctreporter.com
  • Recent

  • Popular

  • Black Rose Awards Set For Sat., February 4

    By Precinct Reporter News
    January 26, 2023
  • OC Black History Parade & Unity Festival

    By Precinct Reporter News
    January 26, 2023
  • LBCC Students Get Ready for Male Success Initiative

    By Precinct Reporter News
    January 26, 2023
  • IE/OC Prostate and Breast Cancer, Change the Menu

    By PRGNews
    July 16, 2015
  • Join our Recipe Competition!

    By PRGNews
    July 16, 2015
  • SB Budget Cuts CDBG

    SB CDBG Cuts Have Local Nonprofits Braced for the Worst

    By PRGNews
    July 16, 2015

Follow us

© Powered by Hotspotwebsites.net. All rights reserved.