Contributors

Mallory Baker

These are most of the words I have written over a number of years (excluding writing for school); there is not much. Most times I attempt to write creatively, I become extremely frustrated. However, when I am in motion and can feel the symmetrical vibrations of machines like buses or the pressures of winds or something like this, and am nowhere near a piano or a computer, I frantically try to capture a feeling in a few words so I that may try and pick it back up later musically.

By no means do I see the art forms as hierarchical, or music as a more refined means of expression than writing. I am constantly mystified by other’s writing-I have many times felt overwhelmingly understood by words, many times transported to another world. Language is invaluable. I am in awe each day at how humanity likely created language and music simultaneously; it is highly plausible that our language and our first music came from the same places in our bodies and brains. The affection I feel for this is indescribable... However, I have always found a blank page far scarier than the canvas of time-it confronts me, glares at me. I get increasingly uncomfortable and dissatisfied filling it up, yearning to just say what I mean through my hands with no words.

I believe music is impossible to fully understand in other forms outside of itself, but I feel that the principles of circuitry come the closest-I can use electricity much better than write when it comes to my feeling of music... In a simple circuit with a light emitting diode, you must have a few things. A voltage source, let’s use an AA battery. A resistor to make sure too much current doesn’t pass through the circuit and ruin your components. Your LED. And some wires to hook them up. Once you have connected these components correctly, your LED will produce light for a reason I find astounding: the electrons need to use light to overcome the barrier inside your diode and flow through the circuit.

This strange force of nature, that we can meld beautifully and frighteningly, assures me that magic does exist. I believe it dances within every person. During this time, I keep going for two reasons. I believe I owe my presence to the betterment of the collective consciousness. And I simply hope that someday, with the right balance of discipline and strength, I will reach out and whatever needs to be freed from inside me will use light to overcome my hands.

Yasmin Bashir

I am from Saint Louis, Missouri currently living in Chicago, Illinois. I am interested in spirituality, the body as it relates to black womanhood and feminist theory. I try to investigate these ideas through writing mostly, but I try to extract and understand how they are informed by my daily life, the land I am on, and especially my ancestral history.

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about my values. What they are, who they serve, what they are rooted in. I used to think I could come to a clearer understanding of who I serve and what my values were through writing. That these answers were hidden somewhere in texts and books or poetry and that my duty was to exhume them. I think now it has become clear to me that these stories or maps of morality and goodness that I am searching for are actually the lives surrounding me. That nurturing and loving my family and community and neighbors is poetry and that is necessary for me to gain a stronger sense of purpose and meaning.

I guess that is what I have been spending my days thinking and writing about. Family and community. Today, though, I am thinking a lot about water. I am currently in Cross Lake, Minnesota. An extremely small town two hours outside of Minneapolis. I’ve been sitting on the doc watching the lake dance and feeling very grateful for water and nature. On the drive up here I saw a sign that said “One Of The Quietest Places On Earth.” A sort of funny claim. It is pretty quiet here though.

Jessica Bishop-RoySe

I was born in Michigan and raised in Florida. I completed a PhD in Sociology before moving to Chicago in 2013 to take a job at DePaul University. Also, I teach classes on data analysis and research methods. This is a career when the bottom dropped out of the academic job market following the last recession. That preferred career was actually a Plan B career that I decided to pursue because I didn’t think I could make a living as a photographer. Which is a funny thing to type when since I don’t think of myself as “artistic”.  Whatever that means.

Philip Bradley

Philip Bradley is a NYC based film director from Nashville. Focused on capturing stories that celebrate life, Phil's style builds off his experience as an editor and cinematographer while incorporating an intimate documentary aesthetic with moving images.

In his filmmaking, which stretches from commercial to documentary and music video, Phil seeks to bring to the forefront the unsung heroes of today. You can find more of his work here: https://philipbradley.me

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Phil has been quarantined with his partner in Brooklyn, NY. Their film production company, ARTIFACT, has been at a standstill while the film industry abruptly ground to a halt due to the stay at home orders. Phil has used this time to pick up new skills, such as 3D modeling, that can apply to his future films once the pandemic has ended.

Phil has also created a series of images and short dance videos for his friend and NYC based choreographer Kareem Woods during the pandemic. They are both quarantined in Bushwick, Brooklyn, which has plenty of isolated areas to film with a crew of one and respect the social distancing measures. These images and films revolve around a central theme of the classic carefree summer that we all are in desperate need of during these times.

Grace Coffey

Grace is a third-year undergraduate student interested in the intersection between art and research, as well as nature and the built environment. She has been an essential worker at Kids Science Labs as an interim teacher and teacher assistant during the pandemic.

Nabil Gowdey

Nabil Gowdey, born and raised in NYC, NY. I lived there until I was almost 30, and with short stints in Honolulu, HI, and Clarksville, TN, I ended up in Chicago, IL, where I've lived since 1990. I've played bass since 1970 and picked up guitar along the way. Growing up in New York, I was fortunate to have some great musical mentors, and have met or played with some famous and iconic artists. For the last five years or so, I've worked for The Salvation Army. This quarantine situation has had me home for a few months, which has allowed me to catch up on my reading, and practice music. I should be returning to work in June.

Holly Graff

I was born in Chicago, I live in Chicago, and I have lived here for most of my life. My three children were also born here and live here. I am a very recently retired professor of philosophy. At Oakton Community College I taught ethics, social and political philosophy, and women’s and gender studies. I attempted to do this in an anti-racist way by emphasizing the systemic racism that mars Western philosophy and by emphasizing philosophers such as Frantz Fanon, Cornel West and Charles Mills. The current uprising against all the aspects of racism is the most inspiring event that I have ever witnessed.

I also taught health care ethics. I never found a general text for health care ethics that included a focus on public health. In my classes I discussed public health as well as pandemics of the past (including the lingering HIV pandemic) and the ethical approaches to the challenges that epidemics present. It was inevitable that we would face a pandemic of this scope again, and it is agonizing to see the avoidable suffering and death in our country and many other countries. Ignorance, racism, greed, and unchecked capitalism enable the coronavirus to flourish. I had planned to use my remaining time to work on writing about environmental ethics, but my plans are now changing.

I fear for my three adult children and for all those who cannot stay safely at home. At least we have all now learned what workers are essential and what voices must be heard and prioritized.

Terrence Karpowicz

Terrence Karpowicz was born in 1948 in Cleveland, Ohio and received a B.A. in fine arts from Albion College, Michigan in 1970. Karpowicz moved to New York City to pursue his career as an artist. Through various jobs, including bartending at Max’s Kansas City and studio manager of Larry Poons, Karpowicz maintained a studio and continued to paint. In 1972, he assisted with an installation of sculpture exhibition by Mark di Suvero which inspired him to sculpture; the world of materials and labor.
In 1973 he enrolled at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana in the graduate program in Sculpture. After a distinguished graduate study that included several exhibitions (Frank Logan Medal and Prize from the Art Institute of Chicago) Karpowicz was awarded a Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship to the United Kingdom, serving as Scholar to the Wind and Watermill Section of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, to study the technical and mechanical aspects of the country’s medieval wind and watermills.
Upon completing his fellowship Karpowicz moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1976 to establish a sculpture studio and continue his career. Since then, he has received two National Endowment for the Arts awards, four grants from the Illinois Arts Council, The Newhouse Award, and numerous public and private commissions. He has exhibited throughout the United States, Mexico, Europe and in the Soviet Union. Karpowicz has received seven commissions for public sculpture from the State of Illinois and his work is held in collections of the City of Chicago, Oklahoma City, and the U.S. General Services Administration.

While an art student in the 1970’s, Terrence Karpowicz was influenced by the theories and practices of Minimalism and Conceptualism which dominated the contemporary art at the time.

In 1975, he was awarded a Fulbright-Hayes scholarship to the United Kingdom to serve as apprentice to the sole millwright for the government’s Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. There he learned the ancient techniques and craftsmanship of watermill and windmill construction and preservation. As a result of these influences and experiences, Karpowicz’s aesthetic is rooted in craftsmanship while being informed by the sublime nature of minimal forms and the layering of history and ideas.

Terrence Karpowicz continues to practice the craft of wood-working and joinery and is especially drawn to the interactions of wind, water, sunlight, and gravity on natural materials. His work is defined by the tension at the point of contact, or joint, and the act of creating this tension. By joining irregular, organic materials (such as wood limbs and granite shards) to machine-tooled geometric shapes of steel, he creates sculpture with actual or implied kinetic relationships among the elements and between the sculpture and its environment.
The ways in which disparate materials interact with each other define the artist’s life and his relationship with the world. Oak and granite nesting in congruent harmony, stainless steel orbs spinning within walnut ellipses, granite shards twisting against armatures of steel - these elements are held together through his commitment to materials, history and craftsmanship.

During this time of COVID-19 Pandemic and Quarantine, Karpowicz remains ever optimistic about the future.

Julie Laffin

Julie Laffin is an artist living in northern Illinois but longing for the southwestern Unites States where she goes each summer to escape the crop dusting in the corn belt that surrounds Chicago. Due to severe, disabling chemical sensitivity Laffin has been quarantining at home, wearing a mask for public outings and social distancing for 15 years so far-long before it became part of the larger culture.

In another incarnation of her artistic life, before becoming environmentally ill, she was a performance/installation artist. Her work can be seen here: www.JulieLaffin.com

Remotely Corona is a photo series that spun off from Laffin's ongoing Hostage at Home series. It's about the intimacy of domestic space and the little things we may not notice unless we are homebound due to protracted illness, or when trying to do our part for the good of humanity during a global pandemic.

Matthew Owens

March 15, 2020

Matthew Owens’ parents met on horseback in Wyoming. Since 1981, he has made Chicago his home where he has produced art, theater, film and video, worked in the events industry, curated art programs, designed costumes, sets and props and played music.

Matthew is a seasoned performance/theater performer and has been seen at such sights as Lincoln Center, P.S. 122, La Mama and Feature in New York City, N.A.M.E., the Art Institute, Randolph St. Gallery, Chicago Cultural Center and the Field Museum in Chicago. He has also performed in Ireland, Finland and different venues throughout the United States and Canada.

Matthew is a puppeteer and has designed puppets for such venues as the Tim Robbins feature film, “Cradle Will Rock” the world premiere of “Amistad” at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and several independent local films. He has made puppets and performed for Stravinsky’s “A Soldier’s Tale” with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Matthew also performs music, playing various folk and early reed and wind instruments such as crumhorn and Bombarded as well as Highland, Uilleann, Spanish Gaita, Turkish Tulum, Breton Biniou and Renaissance bagpipes. For many years he was the piper in the Irish Traditional band “Sheila-ma-Gig.

For the last dozen years, or so, Matthew has designed and fabricated enrichment devices and strategies for Zoo animals at the Brookfield Zoo, Disney Animal Kingdom, SanDiego Zoo, Cincinnati Zoo, Atlanta Zoo, and many other institutions throughout the country and overseas.

Matthew has written several plays and is currently trying to finish a full scale puppet show about Forensic Cadaver Farms.

Currently, Matthew is producing a Windowbox puppet event out of his Lakeview apartment for the neighborhood during the lockdown conditions mandated by the State. government.

July 28, 2020

As we approach the end of July, a mere week away, with no real progress to report on the efforts to abate our “visitation” of the corona virus besetting our world, I reflect, now, upon my awkward attempt at distracting myself with what amounts to a small theatric caprice; the window box puppet performance I began early in April.
Our nation is sloughing off thousands of deaths and millions of cases and the society, and the economy are beginning to bend with the weight of local ordinances and self-imposed limitations on our ordinary, daily lives.
I began this puppet theater with the intent of amusing myself whilst tangentially doing so for my neighbors. It is a modest undertaking utilizing, mostly primitive rod puppets and music and some text revolving around a circus theme. I chose that theme as circuses, in my mind, were an early attempt at what is now known as variety shows, or vaudevilles, or music hall programs with disparate characters with varying degrees of skill and talent performing, briefly, one after another. The concept has allowed me to produce in excess of fifty puppets; jugglers, clowns, animals, tightrope walkers, sword swallowers, magicians, etc. all with the more fantastical elements of dragons and grotesques.

The show has developed into something of a local phenomenon as the local, and national press have sought to cover it as an obvious sedative to an anxious and stressed populace. As many as fifty people; parents, children, retirees, young and old gather, now, every Saturday afternoon to indulge in what, it has to be said, is nearly sophomoric entertainment for 45 minutes, or so.

The result of all this attention, of course, is that I now find myself feeling genuinely obliged to perform each week and to constantly add new characters and material. It has been, without a doubt, an enormously therapeutic exercise for me as I cope with the isolation of my city and the considerable stress of being unemployed at 63 years of age. I have missed but one or two dates, delayed or rescheduled due to weather, but consider my show to be as important to my audience as it is to me. It is pure street theater; with no monetary expectation nor obligation to stay put through the whole show.

I find my production process to be surprising me as my desire to produce increasingly detailed and elegant pieces to accommodate my imagination. For the first time in my professional life I find myself completely destroying an early prototype after hours of work with careless abandon in the hopes of creating just the right effect. Puppetry, of course, is a somewhat demanding craft which usually requires a certain amount of engineering and construction to successfully pull off. I am an artist who is used to painting a full painting in one sitting or sculpting an animal enrichment device in a single day. The very nature of sculpting, molding, casting and fabricating, together with rigging and costuming, slows down my normal impatient impulses and forces me to carefully consider each step and the subsequent actions. All this to produce an ugly little (the figures, being necessarily restricted to the scale of a tiny balcony and a three-foot window) character which flashes before the audience for, usually, no more than three minutes or so.

Mat Rappaport

Mat Rappaport is a Chicago based artist, curator, and educator known for art projects that utilize mobile video, performance, and photography to explore habitation, mass-tourism, perception, and power as related to built environments. Recent projects include the “range” series of performances employing commercial trucks, augmented with external cameras that capture video from the surrounding environment, and screens onto which video is projected as the truck navigates the city. Sitting in the passenger seat, the artist “remixes” the environment in real-time, performing a moving intervention into architectural space. range continues Mat Rappaport’s effort to shape the experience of urban environments through media-based interventions. In 2018, Rappaport developed the Range Mobile Lab, a platform for practice-based research based on a 1995 GMC delivery truck. The Range Mobile Lab serves to extend the range performances, architectural collaborations, and direct community engagement.

Rappaport’s work has been exhibited in the United States and internationally in museums, galleries, film festivals, and public spaces. Recent projects have been featured during EXPO Chicago, the Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2019 and 2017, Anniversary of the Jewish Ghetto in Venice, Italy, and 2018 Ann Arbor Film Festival and performances with the Range Mobile Lab at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Block Museum at Northwestern University.

Rappaport is an Associate Professor in Cinema and Television Arts at Columbia College in Chicago.

Projects: http://www.meme01.com

Kevin Simonds

I have been quarantining with my roommate since the end of March. I am incredibly grateful to not be alone. I imagine that I would be struggling quite a bit if I had to do this on my own. I miss my job working in childcare. I have regular zoom meetings with the families and their infants. I will sing songs and read books to them and check in with the families and get updates. I know that they are all struggling to work from home while caring for their children. I miss having regular interactions with my kiddos and their parents. One of the things I like most about my work is being with people and having human contact. Now I am on the computer a lot and I hate it. The thing that brings me joy during these difficult times is recreating works of art and posting them on Instagram. I look forward to it every day and spend a lot of time thinking about what to do and how to do it. Once I've finished one, I am immediately thinking of what to do next. Early on in quarantine, I was doing sewing projects but posting pictures on Instagram provides some amount of virtual human interaction that I desperately crave and need. It's helping me get through and it is something my roommate and I can do together and bond over.

Robert Steel

Robert Steel is a composer for cinema, theatre and other media. Recent credits include the films Get the F**k Outta Paris (Sound of Silent Film Festival Chicago 2020), Hominidae (Premiere at Sundance Film Festival), Oh Baby!, Junk Girl (Sound of Silent Film Festival Mexico City 2017), Edge of Alchemy (Sound of Silent Film Festival Chicago 2017), 147 Pianos, Speed Dating, Sleepy Steve, Signals, Ten More, Scarlet, Reunion, and Lobster Stew for Soprano and Virtual Instruments. He is an Associate Professor at the School of Cinematic Arts at DePaul University where he runs the DePaul Cinema and Interactive Media Sound Design program and the CDM Sound Studios. He is a recipient of After Dark awards, the DePaul University Excellence in Teaching Award, a University Research Council Grant, a Global Learning Experience Grant and awards from ASCAP and the Illinois Arts Council.

Adriel Trespalacios

More to come…

Allen Turner

Allen Turner is a game designer, storyteller, artist, author, composer and performer who has been involved in storytelling and education most of his adult life. He teaches game and design at DePaul University and runs the DePaul Originals Game Studio. He believes in the power of play and story as fundamental, powerful medicines which shape our sense of self, relationships, and our connection to the cosmos.

As a storyteller he often tells myths and legends within the Native American community in Chicago. He has provided cultural performances for the Chicago Public Schools, Chicago Public, the Illinois Teachers Conference, Newberry Library, Chicago Historical Society, and myriad other organizations and institutions. He extols play as a learning tool by educating teachers, via workshops, on how to bring games and game-like learning into their class rooms to give students a sense of progression and purpose and as rites of passage.

Most recently Allen has published Ehdrigohr, a tabletop, dark fantasy, roleplaying game that explores tribal themes and allegorical battles with depression, solitude, identity, and erasure. More info on that and other projects can be found at council-of-fools.com/blog.

As a performer he enjoys exploring the narrative power of dance as a space of personal ritual and transformation via various forms of folkloric dance. His motions pull from all of his heritages and experiences with various teaches becoming a fluid blend of Raqs Sharqi, Butoh, West African, and North American Men’s Traditional and Omaha (Grass) dances.

A creator of music he explores creating psychedelic, dreamy soundscapes and danceable rhythms under the auspices of the Council OF Fools Rhythm Council.

Robert Weiss

March 15, 2020

The pandemic has stopped my incessant travel and desire to experience more lives and more cultures as I live the solitude of my inner circle of friends and family. I mourn the state of our fragile planet and suffering of all beings. Incarnations in a life filled with continuous change moving from my adolescent work in photography to undergraduate work in radio, TV and film to majors in Zoology, English Lit and Film Production to graduate degrees in medicine with thirty years working in the nuanced field of a plastic surgery subspecialty. I have written medical texts, published in academia and currently medical mission memoirs. I now focus on living, cherishing the creativity and beauty of cooking, working the land, maintaining my health and body, coexisting with all creatures, revisiting water-color last embraced in childhood and reconnecting with my passion for photography. I embrace the artistic expression that has given me a sense of continuity through my life.

July 29, 2020

Time has lost its orderliness; weeks, days, hours merge and blend. I am unable to unscramble them. My tendency to organize and categorize has lost its importance as I surrender. I don’t seem to care what day or hour or particular moment in time it is. After decades of trying to live in the moment I am inadvertently actually living in the moment. Floating in an abundance of unstructured time I find myself lost in the that moment. At times I slip into long-standing behavior, ruminating about past grievances and future worries. Worries aggravated and magnified by the pandemic’s ominous effects blanketing concerns of climate change, racial issues, neo-fascism, the ever expanding ugly side of capitalism, military excess, police brutality and the injustice of our politically, financially, self-promoting dog and pony show legal system - which clearly has little to do with truth and justice - as I have experienced at a visceral level. I am tired of the self-promoting dishonesty of academia ranging from research manipulation to outright fraud manifest in the dangerous relatively unrestrained greedy behavior of Big Pharma that contributed to the death of my first wife of twenty years and directly caused the unnecessary death of my healthy mother.

I am acutely aware of the hypocrisy, self-centered, oftentimes malevolent behavior of humans absent kindness, brotherhood and support in crisis. I am energized by the miracle and bounty of my garden, the animals and beauty of nature where I am so happy to be immersed.

I miss much of my old normal: personal contact with my friends, sharing a meal in person, sharing a drink in person, intimate, private moments in person. I miss volunteering, donating my surgical skill and ability abroad. I would be happy to never see another self-centered person not wearing a mask or wearing a mask under their nose or chin, putting others at risk.

I have deep gratitude. Gratitude for my health. Gratitude for the health and loving supportive relationships I have with my wife, my family and my friends. Gratitude for my pets, birds, nature and the multitude of disparate life experiences that I have lived.

DIANE Wilber

I think the Pandemic brings so many emotions — fear, anxiety, grief and mourning front, and center. I think this is pretty typical of most people. I don't like being typical.

I fear that the economy may collapse. Food will be scarce, lines for groceries will be 100's deep. Banks will close. In my community, there are lines for everything, grocery stores, pharmacies, even hardware stores. Our local bank branches are closed. The ATMs are available although most stores discourage cash or will not take cash at all. I have the same $20 in my wallet I had in mid-March. Most people adhere to physical distancing (I hate the expression Social Distancing) but definitely not everyone. I do not enter many stores anymore for fear of exposure, but I do walk around my neighborhood early in the morning. People start lining up hours before the stores open. This is frightening. By the time people get into the stores, the shelves are empty.

I am in the high-risk category. I have COPD and am over 60 years old, so I only go out early in the morning, when few people are out. Many people are compliant. Still, there are those that are not. There are many runners on Sheridan Road that do not wear masks or wear them around their neck. Some get way to close, as far as I am concerned. This is both frightening and makes me extremely anxious. I do not fear death, as much as getting sick and dying alone. I am beginning to get anxious about money. My partner and I need both our incomes to live. We are still waiting for his government assistance.

So many people do not have anyone to turn to in this crisis. I must have faith that everything will be okay. I don't believe the virus will go away until we have a vaccine. Life will never be the same. I think what separates me from many, is that I am not living alone, and I have emotional support whenever the fear or anxiety gets to be too much. I know so many people that are alone and afraid. My heart breaks for them.
Finally, I am very good at refusing to dwell on tomorrow. I focus on getting through today. I am so grateful, for all that I do have, and I fear for those that do not have any food, shelter, or faith in God. My deepest fear is that I will leave this earth without doing anything significant. Will the world be a better place because I was in it? I fear not. The gravity of the Pandemic has been numbing. I simply do not allow myself to panic about tomorrow. I must trust in God.

Dolores Wilber

I look for ways to work with other people to make things together. How we live, work, abide and survive occupy my attention. I embracing ties that bind and cultural survival, emphasizing the body in formal and emotional investigations aiming for beauty and intimacy. Everything I do is based in growing up in Chicago. I am an artist, designer and teacher. I believe in action, creativity and collaboration as the answer to the social justice and climate crisis problems of this planet. The COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine reveal the profound fissures and inequality for the people and our planet ecosystems. We have the opportunity to build a resilient and just planet based on mutual respect and value for all life. This collaboration of this website is the focus of my current research, aiming to share our intimate experiences and connection to each other.