Untitled, 2020

I went down during the Covid Epidemic and took this shot near Times Square . Read some of the text seen in the background of the photo. These are very unsettling times….

Everything is Okay, 2020

It’s weird how a song written in the past can so clearly explain the present. For me, I didn’t realize at the time of writing ‘Everything is Okay’ that, just a few short months later, I would need to hear its message like never before. ‘Everything is Okay’ is about the transformation that occurs in your heart when you realize that everything is out of your control. It is the following decision that transforms you: the choice between holding on or letting go.

Bryan Bardin

Rest, 2020

GIF, drone footage stabilized and subject masked to create “cinemagraph”

The most disruptive thought technologies I’ve encountered over the past few years was the discovery of the Instagram account @thenapministry where they posit that “rest is a form of resistance and reparations.” For me, following Tricia Hersey has been a mini-enlightenment, the glorification of productivity is so ingrained in me and the conviction in which she challenges those beliefs and points to the harm and complicity this plays in systemic racism and oppression has been eye opening. The grind, the hustle, the constant production can be like an opiate, keeping us sedate and comfortable, it keeps us from challenging the parts of society that are unjust. Hersey says, “grind culture is a collaboration between white supremacy and capitalism. it views human bodies as machinery.” We will rest.

Stuart Vance

Triborough (New Vision), 2017

Acrylic on Canvas, 

My recent work has been about looking at common things that we see every day with a different and deeper outlook. In particular, I am interested in the way we move about in vehicles on freeways, roads, bridges, and streets without really taking notice of the beauty of the world we’ve built around us. My art practice seeks to show that world in a different light. I’d like to think that humans are fully-fledged members of Nature and that everything we design and build is a part of the natural world. The fact that we don’t always see it that way reflects our disassociation from our own true nature. My paintings attempt to lift the veil of our illusion to reveal what we could be if we embraced that contradiction.

Lynda Shenkman

Untitled, 2020

Photography,

A Transformation of life as we know it. On April 26, 202 I ventured into Manhattan to get a sense of life in the lockdown. It was so very sad to see Manhattan almost completely void of Life. What makes NYC is it people and cultures and seeing the void was transformative in my mind. The world has indeed changed.

Alma Corona

We Need Change Now, 2020

Acrylic on Canvas, 

I decided to paint something to represent transformation/change in the main racism issue. 2020 has been an extremely hard year and kept going downhill since January. However, after a man was murdered by police in Minneapolis, the world began to wake up to the fact that there is racism everywhere. So yes this year sucks, but we can look at the bright side and focus on the momentum we have right now to make changes and fix the broken systems.

Debra Bronkema

Portal of Prayer, 2020

Photographs with haiku poetry, 5 slides

The slide show includes photographs I’ve taken of places I’ve been in the past year, all places that I can’t visit now. From Zephyr Point in Lake Tahoe, Nevada to Cedarkirk in Lithia, Florida, to a Worship service in Pleasantville Presbyterian Church in Pleasantville, New York, these photo’s represent a journey that feeds the inner transformation of this time. During these last months I have used the spiritual discipline of creating haiku’s (5-7-5 syllable pattern) poetry/prayers to help me be intentional about connecting to today’s truth. Putting these two art forms together has filled me up in the pandemic, and led me deeper into the truth of injustice coming clearer day-by-day.

Hannah Scanlon

Like Dollars and Cents, 2020

Natalya Khorover

Speaking of Birds, 2020

repurposed single use plastic; variable, currently 112 birds total

“Speaking of Birds” is an outdoor installation of birds stitched and formed from single-use plastic. Viewers will note the irony in crafting birds from a material that is polluting our environment, and contributing to the deaths of thousands of birds as they become entangled in plastic bits or mistake it for food. The whimsical appearance of the birds belies the importance of the message, echoing the contradictions people encounter when weighing convenience with recycling and proper waste disposal.

Transforming the mountain of useless plastic into these light and fun birds was a therapeutic pandemic experience.

Jane Chancey Bullard

Splash! , 2020

Watercolor,

During the initial weeks of COVID isolation I found an outlet for creativity through small watercolor paintings of women in various expressions of joy, contemplation, work, and play. The art I am submitting fits the theme of “transformation” to me because it shows a woman leaping into unknown waters; she feels vulnerable and exposed, yet free and exhilarated! Transformation… a splash… a plunge … going deeper … a baptism.