For the past two months, I’ve been going forward with the content I had planned before the pandemic took over all of our lives. While I’ve found this helpful and hopeful in a number of ways, I’ve also been experiencing some extreme highs and lows as a creative working and producing work during Covid-19 stay-at-home orders.
And I want to talk about it.
Share your experience creating under lockdown here.
My Experience Creating During Covid-19
Periods of extreme positivity contrasted by days of watching delicious, trashy reality TV and playing Sim City 3,000… That’s how up-and-down my creative life has been over the past two months.
When stay-at-home orders were first put in place, I jumped into high gear. I launched my blog, worked on my novel rewrites daily, shot a short film in my apartment (that’s yet to be edited), fully produced a virtual burlesque show (Burlesque & Chill – already going into Season 3), and jumped on-board the team of a virtual film and music festival (Couch-a-Thon Festival). I think that’s how I cope with anxiety.
This month, however….?
I’ve barely kept up with all my responsibilities, struggled to stay motivated, and battled myself to ease up on the negative self-talk about my lack of productivity. Some days are better than others, but I can’t deny that it’s getting rough.
However, I don’t want to simply relay my own experience.
Share Your Experience Creating During Covid-19
For this reason, I’m opening up a call for responses to the entire Artful Efforts community and beyond. Artists of all mediums and backgrounds are welcome to submit their response.
I want to know…
- What has creating been like for you?
- How are you staying productive?
- How are you staying inspired?
- How are you struggling?
- Are you trying anything innovative or new to you right now?
Let’s talk about it!
Share ideas, experiences, challenges, and moments of inspiration. It’s all important. It’s all relevant, it’s all interesting to me.
Maybe contributors will have great advice for other artists struggling right now, helpful resources to share, or it could help us simply feel less alone as we stay locked down in self-imposed isolation.
Whether you’re “finally finishing that magnus opus” or barely able to get up in the morning, all experiences are valid, appreciated, and important.
Share your response here in this Google Form.
I’ve also been spending a lot of time thinking about what this global crisis means for the future of various art forms.
- Will virtual concerts become the mainstream way to experience live music?
- Will drive-ins become recycled as a regular movie-viewing fixture?
- Will burlesque performers be able to touch audience members?
- Will visual artists build more robust ways of showing and selling their work online?
I invite you to share your questions and predictions about your own industry and medium(s) as well. (Optional)
Your Artful Effort
This week’s artful effort should be obvious to you already… submit to my call for responses on how you’ve been creating under stay-at-home orders. Click here to submit! I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.
