Truth in Photography and Art, it really is the most important message the Artist or Photographer can send /  by Mirena Rhee

Recently I have been going through some books I own and which I had decided to sell because they no longer move me, and their physical weight and space take space that I want to devote to what I truly believe in.

on the other hand there are many people who could genuinely benefit from these books, they will want them care for them and will be glad of the experience.

I see this as a win-win situation.

One of those books I own is Richard Avedon's fashion. When I first started out as an artist I was obsessed with photography and with Richard Avedon. I loved both fashion and beauty so his work was a natural fit to what my eyes craved.

One day I went to the San Francisco museum of modern Art to see an exhibition of large portraits by Avedon. Avedon's work was on the top floor. On the third floor there was another exhibition of photography by Robert Frank. Richard Avedon's portraits were enormous or at least they seemed to me so, larger than the height of a human being. Robert Frank's photographs on the other hand were tiny, or what it seemed to me the palm of a human hand. So what happened is that I descended from the top floor of the enormous portraits down to the tiny photographs of Robert Frank and I was profoundly moved by there genuinity. Where Richard Avedon's photographs were produced, Robert Frank's photographs were snapped casually and with keen eye on the streets, they were made with love and immediacy and they carried a personal truth.

I think what Robert Frank exemplified in his work was the profound sympathy for the human condition. While Avedon tried to cover it up, mask it and serve it on a plate.

“Ugly humans do not belong on the beautiful page, in fact most humans aren’t beautiful enough to grace here these pages so I come in to fix what’s wrong with the prowess of my photo improving skills, with the might of my lights and the fake filters on my lens” I could hear Avedon say.

I immediately fell out of love with Richard Avedon. See truth really matters in art, this is one of the reasons that Van Gogh is more prized than Bouguereau.

I have many painter friends who do not like Van Gogh and that is okay because he's not really painters painter, he's the truth of the human condition. His work speaks to everyone, just like his letters.

I frequently have arguments with people over values, and specifically the role of money in interactions. So I always tell this story.

Imagine a friend gives you a present, it is a beautiful present and you're so grateful to get it. You thank your friend profusely and you feel great. You turn around to stash your prize away but then your friends taps you in the shoulder and says, sorry it's going to be 200 bucks, how would you feel?

When art is produced this is exactly what it feels like. And this is the type of art that Richard Avedon makes and which turned me off to whatever he made. I could see the price tag of his work before I see the work, and the human being/s behind it.

Just like in the story with the gift and my friend, where within 5 minutes of interaction you decide whether this is a work from the heart or the work of a merchant, in art it really takes some time before you could decide whether to connect with the work or to put it in the merchandise box. It is fine to be bought and sold, bread is also bought and sold. But while bread has to be consumed fresh, art must live and outlive the human condition it was produced with, it must transcend the individual and its production value and speak to our higher brain, and not the consumer reptile brain. Art must speak truth.

Back to the Future - in 2011 I went to Zuccotti Park to photograph the Art of Occupy Wall Street. /  by Mirena Rhee

I also wrote an essay titled “What is it to have?”

What is it to have? To hold? How is it that we are having it when we are not holding it? How do we have the things that we supposedly have like our limbs. We posses temporary control over a collection of molecules that responds to electrical stimuli? Is that the having? But we do own supposedly things that we neither hold nor electrically stimulate. How are we sure. It is a fascinating subject.

The Future /  by Mirena Rhee

One of the best things that happened to me in the silicon valley is that I was able to make a lot of money and to learn how to dream and execute projects, and also I was able to grow as a person.

So while I was working in the valley I used my money to travel and see the most beautiful things in the world. And what I mean by that is I mean the greatest and best museums in the world that hold the most precious works of art.

Here is the essential list:

Louvre and Versailles , Musée d'Orsay in Paris

Prado, Reina Sofia and Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid

Rijksmuseum, and the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, Kunstmuseum in The Hague.

Vatican, Vatican Museums, Galleria Borghese, the city of Rome and its ruins

Florence and everything in it

Gaudi in Barcelona

MOMA in New York

Metropolitan museum of Art in New York

National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and the British Museum in London, as well as the Tate

Later I visited the World of Salvador Dali and the beautiful countryside of Spain, especially the Costa Brava coast.

What I learned is that Boogie Woogie by Piet Mondrian is a terrible painting that has aged really badly, and that after visiting the Museum and Theater of Salvador Dali in Figueres I can no longer look at any gallery show with the same eyes - Dali surpasses them all by a mile. All art now to me looks ugly and badly made. Dali had the most superb taste among all modern artists and is of course only surpassed by Leonardo and Michelangelo.

I am working on giant hand paintings, I am sure no one I know does it so I must do it /  by Mirena Rhee

A sketch, laying down the disegno and the space where these hands operate. Using blue acrylic paint that i have a lot of, to sketch, acrylic paint is terrible but excellent for sketching. It dries fast and doesn’t smell.

I have been interested in the surface of the hands but now I look inside and discover all kinds of things behind the skin.

It’s like the hands are being turned inside out - as if the hands - with the skin gone - become a door to unknown destination.

I feel like a detective, what is beyond the (skin of ) the hand?

Peeling hands, folded hands, hands landscape, hand tectonics. Peeling the hand is like peeling an orange towards unknown destination. It's going to be called the disintegration of the hands, the peeling of the hands.

The third dimension or the dimensions are spilling on the one side of the painting.

The Peeling of the Hands, discovery of the space of the hands, rejecting elements that don.t work. Beacuse this is not a flying hands painting.

Peeling of the Hands painting

For my Memory Replacement Election Day 2020 Installation and Performance I built tiny canvas cozies for the hand sanitizer bottles, and they had tiny hands cut into them. /  by Mirena Rhee

By the Way I was supposed to move to Spain in 2020 /  by Mirena Rhee

You know when you make plans and exactly the opposite happens? My plan was to make some quick money in the States and move to Spain, Costa Brava, the land of Salvador Dali.

After my journey on the Camino de Santiago in 2019, I went on the opposite side of Spain to see Salvador Dali, and fell in love with Cadaques on my trip to see Salvador Dali's museum and house.

Cadaques is in all of Salvador Dali's paintings.

So my plan was to just take care of some things in the States and move to Spain by the summer of 2020.

Instead I stayed in New York City and made art.

I made some pretty awesome art so I guess it wasn't just silver lining it was just a pot of gold as far as I'm concerned. Yeah I got Covid too and it was unpleasant, but I also got a City free of foot traffic..

As a Thank You and in honor of my friends who answered my call for support in December I am planning Remember Summer series of installations in Central Park in February /  by Mirena Rhee

As the title of my post says I'm planning on installations in honor and to celebrate my friends who answered my call for support in December.

A few days ago I went to Central Park and it was so incredibly beautiful during the magic hour which I photographed rocks and places with my crappy phone, but I'm planning to return to photograph with my regular camera.

I have this incredible fascination with Central Park, rocks and trees, that almost borders on infatuation.. and I am gonna act on it.

The colors are so fantastic and so different from the summer and fall, beautiful blues and Grays and earthen colors. I'm totally infatuated with Central Park at this point. And before that goes away I'm going to set up a series of installations which will celebrate the muted colors of the park in the bright colors of paint.

Remember Summer possible locations below and tiny Installation sketch.

I am not gonna pretend, I work in the tradition of Christo Javacheff but my work is quick, fast to deploy, without permission, cheaper to make and easy to handle by just one person. It lasts mostly a day and then its gone. That’s the spirit of the 21 century. The speed of light :)

Remember Summer tiny Installation sketch. I am planning a series of installations in Central Park in February, some may not be hands :)

Tree Cozies Installation Sketch for Trees in Central park

From my favorite teacher, philosopher and thinker Joseph Campbell. Sometimes I do fee like the proverbial hero from the Power of Myth /  by Mirena Rhee

MOYERS: But aren't many visionaries and even leaders and heroes close

to the edge of neuroticism?

CAMPBELL: Yes, they are.

MOYERS: How do you explain that?

CAMPBELL: They've moved out of the society that would have protected them, and into the dark forest, into the world of fire, of original experience. Original experience has not been interpreted for you, and so you've got to work out your life for yourself. Either you can take it or you can't. You don't have to go far off the interpreted path to find yourself in very difficult situations. The courage to face the trials and to bring a whole new body of possibilities into the field of interpreted experience for other people to experience that is the hero's deed.

exotic star, 3d pen and ink drawing /  by Mirena Rhee

exotic star, 3d drawing - pen and ink on hot press board - 11 x 8 in, 2021

Exotic Star, 3d pen and ink drawing, 2021, detail

My first completed work of the year, I am currently working on a really large painting and don't know what i am doing in a large format. This is an experiment I came up with on a whim, i generally don't like decorative stuff that are done without any meaning - but the 3rd dimension here has more than meaning - this is what all my work in any medium is about.

I just decided to see what i can just put together without too much "working it", it's basically two drawings, one wrapped around the other.

It could also be a lamp.

The most entertaining thing in the world is the NYC Subway Car /  by Mirena Rhee

I was riding a subway car and in it a guy was trying to breakdance.

I was watching the Viennese New Year's concert, which is really great. But all the dudes in the orchestra looked almost identical. The BBC narrator mentioned that the number of women in the orchestra has gone down from 12 to 7 this year. This is however not this kind of essay..

As the BBC narrator explained Vienna is seeped in tradition, Brahms, etc, the Viennese get their entertainment in the concert hall, at the ballet and other stately and princely establishments.

In New York everyone performs everywhere, especially on the subway. They have the audience there captive at least between two stations.

The NYC Subway Car is one of the most entertaining platforms ever, of course not now but when the city is in full swing getting on the L is an experience.

They're all kinds of cultural styles arising from the street culture of New York City, but the subway culture is a thing of it's own.

Every train line is a subculture, and all New Yorkers know of the trains and their peculiarities, and the crowd that rides in them.

I created several video/performance/animation/installation works based on my experience and observations on the subway called Ingredients of a Subway Car. At one time I planned constructing a subway car and inviting people to paint graffiti on it. I am yet to act on that project.

As it happens I have moved so many times in New York - I have lived on almost all trains and all neighborhoods.

The Greatest Experience of a Human Being is the Human Experience, as in experiencing another human being /  by Mirena Rhee

One of the greatest experiences of a human being is the experience of human culture. I have always wondered what is it about New York City that is magical, magical and irreplicable anywhere else.

Because the entire United States is pretty diverse if you pick the right spots, California is diverse also and I think California is a great candidate to be a cradle of great culture just like Athens or Rome. The problem of California is the car culture and the fact that human beings do not get a variety of other human experiences, every person is confined to their car and their only experience of other humans would be typically at work. The California work culture is great - something that's really abysmal on the East coast. 

However, having the experience of just going to Central Park and having on one bench person who probably works somewhere in a kitchen and then on the next bench over there someone who works in a boardroom and the fact that you could interact and have eye contact with each of these groups I think it's significant. I believe contact is significant to culture, the kind of people, the variety of people you may run into and interact with. California has a street culture, there's a lot of skating, there's Beach but this is not the kind of tumbling of rocks and pebbles that could be polishing these rocks into pebbles.

People in California ( or elsewhere ) are too confined to their cars and reflecting on my personal experience this was my major major gripe. I simply lacked the pressure of humanity around me which I really really appreciate in New York, and of course in many European cities. In New York people talk to strangers all the time I mean you can hardly get out on the street and somebody's going to say something to you. This is not my experience in Europe necessarily. Also, New York is incredibly diverse, you can be in a different country any couple of blocks. These two things work together to create a very thick human soup.

One of the problems with the media culture is the fact that they tell us that what is around us that the humans around us are not important and for some reason, we have to go online or whatever to look up some other human beings that we don't even know. I rather go on the subway and look at a car full of strangers and have first-person observations of their inner and outer lives rather than go online and look at some jerk do weird stuff that is just not truthful. Of course, weird stuff that's elaborate and well constructed like a hundred million dollar Hollywood movie works but that's an entirely different story and a totally different construct.

The human experience - as in experiencing other human beings is the greatest experience. And I'm reflecting on my own experiences in New York City and I believe that this is my greatest experience as an artist as well - experiencing other human beings, experiencing other human beings and their closeness not just as an artist but just as a human being, as a pedestrian in New York City, as , for example, a teacher or worker for the Census Bureau, and of course as a creator of installations. New York is really rich. Rich of The human experience.

I believe this is what infused the cultures of the Mediterranean like the culture of Athens, Florence Rome it was the culture of The human experience and the same thing with the culture in Amsterdam - it was the bouncing off of the mercantile culture of the people who went out on ships to explore the world and came back to the city.

In California, your human experience is stratified into work or shopping so it's fairly restricted to whatever you're doing. Leaving your house in New York City is like wondering into Narnia you never know who you going to run into. And they may change your life. I've had spontaneous conversations with people from all walks of life which is a specifically product of the way New York City operates. I've had conversations with Grandma's, I've had conversations with protesters, with spectators and participants in my art, with people who just run around Central Park, with people who just wander in New York City without a home I actually absolutely hate the word homeless, it somehow connotes human garbage when I think that all humans are gods but some of the gods may have fallen off to the wayside.

When I walk down the street and think of The human experience I think I experience the gods in people.

And Happy New Year 2021 !

People paint on Memory Replacement Election Day 2020 - Installation and Performance by American Artist Mirena Rhee created on November 3rd on Union Square in New York City.

The Greatest Story Ever Told - from the Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell. /  by Mirena Rhee

There is a wonderful story in one of the Upanishads about the god Indra. Now, it happened at this time that a great monster had enclosed all the waters of the earth, so there was a terrible drought, and the world was in a very bad condition. It took Indra quite a while to realize that he had a box of thunderbolts and that all he had to do was drop a thunderbolt on the monster and blow him up. When he did that, the waters flowed, and the world was refreshed, and Indra said, "What a great boy am I."

So, thinking, "What a great boy am I," Indra goes up to the cosmic mountain, which is the central mountain of the world, and decides to build a palace worthy of such as he. The main carpenter of the gods goes to work on it, and in very quick order he gets the palace into pretty good condition.

But every time Indra comes to inspect it, he has bigger ideas about how splendid and grandiose the palace should be. Finally, the carpenter says, "My god, we are both immortal, and there is no end to his desires. I am caught for eternity." So he decides to go to Brahma, the creator god, and complain.

Brahma sits on a lotus, the symbol of divine energy and divine grace. The lotus grows from the navel of Vishnu, who is the sleeping god, whose dream is the universe. So the carpenter comes to the edge of the great lotus pond of the universe and tells his story to Brahma. Brahma says, "You go home. I will fix this up." Brahma gets off his lotus and kneels down to address sleeping Vishnu. Vishnu just makes a gesture and says something like, "Listen, fly, something is going to happen.”

Next morning, at the gate of the palace that is being built, there appears a beautiful blue-black boy with a lot of children around him, just admiring his beauty. The porter at the gate of the new palace goes running to Indra, and Indra says, "Well, bring in the boy.” The boy is brought in and Indra, the king god, sitting on his throne, says, “Young man, welcome. And what brings you to my palace?”

”Well," says the boy with a voice like thunder rolling on the horizon. “I have been told that you are building such a palace as no Indra before you ever built."

And Indra says, "Indras before me, young man-what are you talking about!"

The boy says, "Indras before you. I have seen them come and go, come and go. Just think, Vishnu sleeps in the cosmic Ocean, and the lotus of the universe grows from his navel. On the lotus sits Brahma, the creator. Brahma opens his eyes, and a world comes into being, governed by an Indra. Brahma closes his eyes, and a world goes out of being. The life of a Brahma is four hundred and thirty thousand years. When he dies, the lotus goes back, and another lotus is formed, and another Brahma. Then think of the galaxies beyond galaxies in infinite space, each a lotus, with a Brahma sitting on it, opening his eyes, closing his eyes. And Indras? There may be wise men in your court who would volunteer to count the drops of water in the oceans of the world or the grains of sand on the beaches, but no one would count those Brahmin, let alone those Indras."

While the boy is talking, an army of ants parades across the floor. The boy laughs when he sees them, and Indra's hair stands on end, and he says to the boy, "Why do you laugh?"

The boy answers, "Don't ask unless you are willing to be hurt." Indra says, "I ask. Teach." (That, by the way, is a good Oriental idea: you don't teach until you are asked. You don't force your mission down people's throats.)

And so the boy points to the ants and says, "Former Indras all. Through many lifetimes they rise from the lowest conditions to highest illumination And then they drop their thunderbolt on a monster, and they think, 'What a good boy am I.' And down they go again.

While the boy is talking, a crotchety old yogi comes into the palace with a banana leaf parasol. He is naked except for a loincloth, and on his chest is a little disk of hair, and half the hairs in the middle have all dropped out. The boy greets him and asks him just what Indra was about to ask. "Old man, what is your name? Where do you come from? Where is your family? Where is your house? And what is the meaning of this curious constellation of hair on your chest!"

"Well," says the old fella, "my name is Hairy. I don't have a house. Life is too short for that. I just have this parasol. I don't have a family. I just meditate on Vishnu's feet, and think of eternity, and how passing time is. You know, every time an Indra dies, a world disappears - these things just flash by like that. Every time an Indra dies, one hair drops out of this circle on my chest. Half the hairs are gone now. Pretty soon they will all be gone. Life is short. Why build a house?"

Then the two disappear. The boy was Vishnu, the Lord Protector, and the old yogi was Shiva, the creator and destroyer of the world, who had just come for the instruction of Indra, who is simply a god of history but thinks he is the whole show.

Indra is sitting there on the throne, and he is completely disillusioned, completely shot. He calls the carpenter and says, "I'm quitting the building of this palace. You are dismissed." So the carpenter got his intention. He is dismissed from the job, and there is no more home building going on. Indra decides to go out and be a yogi and just meditate on the lotus feet of Vishnu.

……….

(Eventually) Indra gives up his idea of going out and becoming a yogi and finds that, in life, he can represent the eternal as a symbol, you might say, of the Brahma.

So each of us is, in a way, the Indra of his own life. You can make a choice, either to throw it all off and go into the forest to meditate, or to stay in the world, both in the life of your job, which is the kingly job of politics and achievement, and in the love life…

Now, this is a very nice myth, it seems to me.

Merry Christmas from Rome /  by Mirena Rhee

Merry Christmas from Rome at the Saint Peter’s in the Vatican, with the greatest artist that ever lived Michelangelo Il Divino “The Divine” Buonarroti, and truly yours.

2020 /  by Mirena Rhee

2020 has been completely incredible in that, it may sound strange, but I'm glad, I got Covid early on - around the end of March - it really freed up the rest of my year so I could work and not be worried as much. Around April 20th I wrote the account of my Covid experience in my notebook and here it is completely unaltered, it's only commas and the occasional grammar thing here and there.

Some of you might know or of course, probably don't know - I'm estranged from my family, I talk to my dad occasionally but often that stops.

After I completed my lockdown experience I took a little time off from New York for about 20 days and then I came back to work for the Census Bureau, I knew that to finance all the work that's coming up and especially having to ask others to contribute I should be the one to contribute first. I also decided to give up alcohol at least for a few years until what I think is essential work gets done.

Anyway working for the Census Bureau was profitable but incredibly intense. One of the reasons I decided to do it is exactly because it was extremely intense the type of work which is almost like a door to door salesman but with quite a lot of personal questions that I was supposed to ask people of all walks of life.

I got a government-issued phone, government-issued hand sanitizer which smelled like brandy so when I used it I smelled like I had just gotten off a feast, and masks. I would get about 100 addresses a day loaded onto my government-issued phone and I would get up in the morning and start knocking on doors.

After a couple of months of this, I was a part of the SBE operation which is counting the homeless people at soup kitchens and also other places where people without a home tend to sleep overnight.

So it was the kind of thing where in the morning I would go and knock on doors at the $4 million condos in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, and then I would go into a tall building and go all the way up the elevator with nanotechnology buttons that is self-cleaning, accompanied by a company concierge and I will go up to the penthouses and knock on the doors of the 30 million dollar apartments. And the next day I would go to the New York housing authority and interview people in all kinds of situations, and then the next day I would be at the soup kitchen interviewing people standing in line.

After a couple of months of this, I was sent to rural Georgia, there for about 10 days I drove around and interviewed from the wealthiest neighborhoods to the most humble trailer parks. I remember almost every single person I met on this trip.

I have to say that I've had an action movie worth of experiences while working for the Census Bureau, I met insane circumstances in which people lived and every day I was reminded of how special it is to be a part of The human experience. We are very very fragile.

My story of Covid and The Lockdown in Manhattan


Today is April 20th. I am at the studio of a friend. I am near Hudson River Park in Manhattan. He is a good friend. He left for upstate New York March 21st. I have been alone at the studio ever since. I did a performance at the Armory Show March 8th. After that, the world started shutting down.

Strangely enough, except for the masks, the park feels almost normal.

On March 31st I became sick with the flu. On April 1st I was having trouble breathing. I decided to go to the emergency room. I packed a bag

 (I packed a bag as if I were going to be intubated and won't come back – Author’s Note from Aug 13 2020).

But before that, I looked up on Google an emergency room I can go to. I picked Mount Sinai Beth Israel near 17th Street and 1st avenue 

(at the time I thought that if I were to die better try it at the best hospital in town. The funny thing is that months later I met a nurse from Beth Israel during one of my installations in Central Park. She said that the main people at the hospital are business people but the doctors and nurses are great. I decided that if I ever get rich I will give a gift to the hospital right now I don't have anything, and I can't pay - Author’s Note from Aug 13 2020).

I started packing my bag around 6pm but because of worry and confusion couldn't leave until around 8pm.

I was also on Facebook messenger with my dad, and I was crying. My dad is 80 years old and around 6 thousand miles away and staying home. As I write this he has been home almost 40 days. 

(Author’s Note - as of August 13th he hasn't yet left home except to throw out the trash. Author’s Note - on Aug 17, today, is his birthday and he said he wanted to wait until after he is 82).

After I completed my performance on March 8th the world and New York city started shutting down. First they closed the Public Library. Then they closed the Apple Store. My regular haunts for high speed internet. I went to Starbucks and as I was sitting they started taking away the tables. Then they closed all Starbucks. Then they closed my gym.

At this point, I had decided to leave New York and ride out the storm at my grandparents’ house in Bulgaria, which I also converted to a studio.

My plane tickets were for March 27th. The week leading up to my flight they started shutting borders, airports, and grounding airlines. Both my airlines canceled my flights that week.

Leading up to the moment of going to the hospital I did not know what to think. In my mind, I was leaning towards a conspiracy. I forgot the conspiracy once I started having difficulty breathing. I still don't know what to think.

Once I found out I’d have to ride out in the studio of my friend, I decided to use my time to paint. I had been thinking of making giant hands paintings and started on that.

Once another friend recommended to me to try He Shou Wu, a Chinese herb. I found the He Shou Wu in my storage and brought it to the studio and started taking it.


He Shou Wu is not really a drug. I would describe its effect as anti-depression. But it doesn't make you in any way high. I actually dislike being high, I prefer my brain intact.

I started painting and felt okay up until the point of starting to come down with the flu and having difficulty breathing.


A few days prior I went to a friend's apartment to take a shower and maybe got the bug there.

Here at the studio if I were to stay overnight - it is illegal as it is a commercial space. And there is no shower. But I tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible and only leave to get food. 

As it stands now I have been in virtual isolation for a month.

When I made my bag ready for the emergency room I left the building and started towards the hospital. The city was quiet and eerily empty. As I was walking a few homeless people approached me, and also there were a few people walking their dogs. I took the 14th street and no one was around.

As I was reflecting back on my experience I realized to what degree the feeling of the empty city, the scenes at the hospital, resembled all the Hollywood movies I had watched. As if all the Hollywood directors had gone to the future, came back, and made their movies.

As I was approaching the hospital I was full-on bawling. I saw the glowing sign on top of a tall building Mount Sinai Beth Israel.

There was a big sign pointing to the emergency room. In front of it, EMT’s were lowering a person from the ambulance. At the entrance of the emergency room, I was greeted by a man who directed me towards a tent. At the tent inside were people with full protective gear, just like in all the Hollywood movies you have seen. I was asked to put on a surgical mask and wash my hands at the hand sanitizing station. (Author’s Note - I kept the mask in a plastic bag as a memento) I still as of yesterday wear that mask whenever I go outside, although it has been 14 days since I recovered.

When I walked inside the tent, already masked and cleaned, they took my temperature and oxygen and asked me about my symptoms. I told them I feel unwell and have difficulty breathing. They told me my oxygen is okay and I should proceed inside the emergency room. I was directed inside and taken by a man deep in the bowels of the emergency room and was directed to sit on a chair in a room full of nursing staff. Everyone seemed masked, gloved, with goggles and protective gowns. Another man was waiting also one chair over.

 

Later on, turned out the man head pneumonia I heard the doctor say. To my shame when the nurses started asking me questions, I broke down crying.


I was subjected to a well oiled and well organized medical machine and I was impressed. After the nurses took my information, my blood pressure and temperature, I waited for the doctor. The doctor came and we spoke, I told him my symptoms and he ordered EKG and an x-ray. Special staff came rolling an EKG and a giant X-ray machine on wheels and took my pictures.

 

At this point, I had stopped crying and was very hopeful seeing that everyone was on top of things. My dad was waiting on Facebook Messenger for the news from the test. I was waiting for the doctor to tell me the results.


The doctor came and it was good news. The x-ray was clear and although the virus was suspected I was not tested as I was not severely ill.

The next week I spent battling the flu and my tears with home remedies, horse doses of vitamin C, inhalations with vinegar, boiling vinegar around the room, gargling with vinegar, gallons and gallons of chamomile tea, sucking on Swiss made lozenges. 


My breathing improved on the third day. I was very anxious on the 6th day – as if in a biblical scheme I had read people turn for the worse on the 7th day.


On the 7th day, I felt better and the hospital called. I told them I'm better and thanked them profusely.


Sometime around the beginning of April, I stopped reading the news. I only painted, watched Winnie the Pooh videos on YouTube, and talked to my dad.

 

In a few days, however, the virus returned this time in other parts of my body and with weird shivering chills. I ran two heaters to try and warm up and wore all my clothes. In a few days, I felt better again and the second set of 7 days was gone and I felt better and almost 100%.

In this studio, I continue the complete isolation from news and people. And I only leave fully masked and gloved to get food, and I started writing essays and plan work. I occasionally dance in the bathroom with my earbuds on - there is a big mirror there. I'm pretty sure I'm alone in the entire building. As a work alone in the studio I can hear the rolling containers of the cleaning guy who comes to clean the bathrooms every day. I of course try to avoid him and keep a very low profile. But he was gone for a week and now that he's back is very reassuring, almost comforting to hear the sound of normality.

I washed my hair in the sink and realized that after all - this is what they do at hair salons anyway. 

Just started using baby wipes to paint. Also started peeling the hands. I don't know what happens when you start peeling hands. Baby wipes make great Dali.

Dusk falls onto the city outside and comes into the studio.