It has been devastating to see the coronavirus take hold of the world and decimate economies and lives. I have been staying home as much as possible. Luckily I still have a job and can get out to work through the week. I wear a mask in populated areas and on public transport. All of this staying at home has set off a wave of creativity. I have been painting, writing, reading, video logging and sharing work with other artists who are also at home more than usual. I keep up to date with the daily infection rates through world meters on the internet. I am working on painting studies and finished paintings. Normally I take a few days to finish a work. The studies are quick and I try to push my colour skills. My finished paintings are quite complex in colour and finish.

This whole disaster has made me focus on my main skills which are writing and painting. The video logs of readings have been a nice way of introducing people to my writing and seeing how the writing reads. Because I wrote it I tend to read it the way I intended it to be read. There is also a wealth of online material provided by galleries and theatre companies which has been great to see. Because we can’t get to the galleries having a viewing with a “guide” online is actually quite interesting. It is currently Easter Friday and it will be interesting to see how infection rates go over this short holiday. Hopefully things improve. April could potentially be a bad month at least in Australia as the flu season is also set to start.

My video logs so far are on IGTV. I tend to put the readings on @derekcarterartist and other videos on @doeraerosol, I try to schedule content for early mornings through Facebook Creator. Probably in the next couple of days my latest painting should be finished and I have quite a lot of video to put together of the process. I also finished a great book of Jung’s essays today. There were beautiful illustrations at the end of the book I took screenshots of from Kindle Cloud Reader. On my current wishlist is to buy Jung’s book of art which should have most of the works I saw as well as many others. It is interesting to see peoples artwork that were therapeutic to their therapy. Also Jung himself painted which would be the bulk of the book. Anyway it has been a productive day. Stay healthy and safe in these uncertain times.