Back in Black
I just returned from a vacation in my hometown of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, one of the more gorgeous mountain towns in the country, if not the world. I am lucky that most of my family still lives there, so a return home is filled with family visits and long days of hiking in the high country. I needed it.
It had been 14 months since I’d had a week off. The last break was a beach trip with my mom, one week before the world shut down. After that, and until just recently, a fog of pressure, strain, and worry dominated my existence.
The first day of shut down at the beginning of the pandemic I rolled up my sleeves and determined to keep my business afloat. I scrambled to come up with a way to teach painting without a studio, and to replace my husband Scott’s pottery teaching income, which was impossible to recreate online. I hadn’t been so stressed in decades.
Survival mode kicked in, and my adrenaline-fueled mind ramped up, creatively and resourcefully, like it hadn’t in years. Within a week I transitioned my painting classes to Zoom and started two new Zoom drawing classes. Because my regular students are loyal, and because they needed the therapeutic connection of art and fellowship as much as I did, we gratefully gathered each week in technological togetherness. It wasn’t perfect, but it was way better than nothing.
The move to a computer screen came with a bit of comical chaos, as several of my students are of advanced years. My assistant, Anna, spent long patient hours guiding a few determined octogenarians through the move to Zoom. Once they got the hang of it, they were its most fervent fans. No more lugging canvas and paint carriers from a parking lot. They may stay on Zoom for good, or most of the time.
I’d never taught online, but like most teachers have reported, I found it exhausting. It felt like I had to project my energy and guidance all the way to where they were, which was not sitting right next to me. Staring at a screen instead of walking around a room is a whole different matter. I’d collapse on the couch after each class, moaning that I wasn’t going to make it.
But the next class would start, and I’d see my kind, diligent, respectful students. They needed art. They needed the routine. They needed the familiar faces and voices. And my God, so did I. Exhausting, yes, the classes were, but I would have been a super sad sack without them.
The logistics of teaching painting on Zoom included me having to critique their work from photos they’d taken themselves to email to me. There are elements of the painting that don’t translate well in a perfect photo, let alone one taken with an iPhone in subpar lighting. But we did surprisingly well. It required them to muster some confidence in their abilities at self-assessment, a learning bonus we’d have missed without our worldwide predicament.
Although the Zoom classes enabled many of my students to keep attending their regularly scheduled art class, I lost about a third of my roster. Some lost their jobs. Some had to cut back on spending. Some were just in shock. Some didn’t want to participate on Zoom. With so much less income, Scott and I tightened our belts down to zero-spending-mode. Like much of the country, we learned we could get by on a lot less. It was empowering.
Three months later we were able to open in a limited capacity in the studio. I taught students in person and online at the same time. Scott taught half as many people in a class, but doubled his usual number of classes. He was working 6 long days a week. Although the masks and the disinfectant and the worries about spreading Covid put a damper on things, it was joyous to engage with real live human beings again.
Throughout the next year, we got used to our weird combo of Zoom and in-studio teaching. We got used to a purgatory-like sense of waiting for something like normality to appear on the horizon.
And then it did. Our classes are transitioning back to full capacity. We are unmasked when at our stations. I get to see paintings live in the studio, and give little demos on canvas when necessary. We are a bit giddy about being together.
While all this strange new world of pandemic living was happening, I added another project to my demanding list. I put my entire beginning painting course to video. I’d never made a video. I trudged though a slow, agonizing learning curve of cameras, studio set-up, microphones, teleprompters, lights, make-up, voice-overs, editing, and course creation. My assistant Anna deserves a medal for putting up with my grumbling and glacial comprehension speed. Eventually I caught on, and can make them completely by myself with a smooth routine.
My doubts and slowness came from a misplaced idea that the videos would be a futile, unprofitable endeavor. As soon as they were live I started using them in class to replace all the beginning lectures that can zap me of energy and time. The videos had better visuals and more comprehensive particulars than my live lessons. Students caught on quicker, and instantly I had much less work. Talk about profitable!
If I’d have known 14 months ago that our business would ultimately be fine, that we’d be back to full classes with long waiting lists, I wouldn’t have been such a wreck. I wouldn’t have worked as hard or as fast or as much. I wouldn’t have learned all the lessons that such a crisis brings.
I learned that I have more energy, creativity, strength, and inspiration than I’d given myself credit for. I learned that the technological world has unlimited possibilities to help my business thrive. I learned on a deeper level what I already suspected: that my students and friends and family care about me and my business, and are eager to support me.
Now that I’m getting back to work after my vacation, I see a very different vista than I did 14 months ago. I have more robust sense of imagination and am flexing bigger gumption muscles. I am willing to take more risks. I have more faith in myself and the universe.
How has the pandemic given you a new perspective? What did you learn? What’s next? I’d love to hear about it.
