Sonia Lunn hosted her Litty Titty Life Draw event yesterday, where artists gathered to draw a nude model, at her studio space in Crown Heights.
Despite the growing anxiety over looming coronavirus about 11 women sipped wine, listened to Erykah Badu gently wailing in the background, and attempted to capture the female form through pencil, pen, or charcoal in the drawing room.
While most people were longing for the carefree days before the coronavirus outbreak where they could be at their annoying jobs or riding a crowded train, these women decided to brave it all.
“Can you wash your hands?” asked Lunn as she met each person at the door to her private event space, a converted two-level garage. In a press conference at City Hall yesterday, Mayor Bill De Blasio and the city’s Dr. Oxiris Barbot insisted that the most important thing was to wash your hands, stay at home when sick, and sneeze or cough into your elbow.
Lunn took extra precautions to sanitize everything before guests started showing up.
“There were a lot of people that didn’t come,” said Lunn about the number of reservations that hadn’t shown. “It’s smaller and better this way.”
Brooklyn is arguably a central hub of arts and culture, but closures and cancellations have become the norm as of late.
At intermission, a campfire roared to life in the backyard, heating up the chilly night. Art students, drawing amateurs, and teachers milled around outside roasting s’mores over the flames.
“Drawing is the ultimate catharsis,” said Shivani Prasad, an art and technology graduate student at NYU. Like Prasad’s school, many college campuses, CUNY, and SUNY schools have resorted to distance learning or online classes until further notice.
Prasad is not a New York native and is worried about future art showcases that will affect her career but also just graduating on time. “My parents just said straight that they weren’t coming. I just want my degree.”
The ever-present public library is also taking a hiatus. All New York City public libraries are suspending public programming and events from Friday, March 13 until Tuesday, March 31.
As the ten-minute break came to a close, the model, El Szilard, took center-focus under a bright spotlight and posed like a Greek sculpture of Aphrodite. “Musicians are losing gigs. In D.C, Nashville, other places,” said Szilard who doubles as a freelance musician in the city. She said that it’s getting harder to find gigs that won’t cancel.
The economy is clearly suffering as stocks are at historic lows because of the coronavirus panic. Local arts, events spaces, and businesses continue to get hit by dwindling customers.
Lunn said that even though the hype over the outbreak isn’t matching what’s happening, she’s not going to hold it against people. “For now it’s like better safe than sorry. Soon it’ll be like better safe than dead,” said Lunn.
“I think this will be good for them,” said Dana ‘Doc’ Martens, an adjunct professor of Creativity and Computation Lab at The New School Parsons’ School of Design. “People will have to find a new way to meet and appreciate art.”
Martens advocated for digital spaces that simulate the city’s art scene and pay artists directly through blockchain. Decentraland is a virtual world that can be explored with an avatar.
Perhaps in these trying times that are even further isolating people from one another out of fear, meeting online might be the safest thing to do.
