Wendy McGrath, Hello, Empty Street & Look
Hello
Linocut relief print
image size – 3” x 2”
print size – 7½” x 5¼”
Empty Street
Linocut relief print
image size – 3” x 4”
print size – 5¾” x 8¾”
Look
Linocut relief print
image size – 5 ¾” x 3 15/16”
When 2020 began, I looked forward to a major milestone birthday. In Japanese and Chinese traditions, this birthday would be a chance for rebirth, a reliving of my childhood—a do-over. I planned to revisit things I loved doing as a child. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Lockdown began just a few weeks before my birthday. I didn’t experience self-pity, more anxious bewilderment as things I had envisioned doing in 2020 became meaningless in the context of what was going on in the world.
As a writer and artist, I am accustomed to solitude or, at least, a practice based on solitude. I live a rich interior life and as the weeks passed, the borders between that interior life and the space in which I operated in real life seemed to disappear. I no longer had to go anywhere or be any place at a certain time so if I wanted to write, I would write. If I wanted to read, I would read. If I wanted to watch a film or a television series, I would do that. I missed my family and friends terribly, but realized I felt a great sense of freedom in my self-isolation.
I am continuing to write and make prints at home. Without a press, I use the weight of my own body to fix image to paper and have grown to love doing linocuts—a medium I had an ambivalent relationship to prior to the COVID-19 lockdown.
The year is half-over, and I realize 2020 has been a rebirth for me after all. I have recaptured that sense of discovery I had as a child—in ink, paper, and printmaking.