Over recent months, so much of our society and sense of normalcy has been upended by the COVID-19 global pandemic. In June 2020, as we begin to work towards something like renewing normal life activities, it is essential that we reflect on new ways of understanding and interpreting our evolving reality. For many artists, the goal of recovery is not to pick up where we left off before the shutdown; but, rather, to re-imagine new and better possibilities for social organization, economy, and culture. To that end, Studios on the Park has invited four leading California women artists to offer imagery and insights for this vital moment of rebuilding. The featured artists—who work extensively with textile- and/or cardboard-based materials, collage, stitch work and/or weaving—include Marsha Shaw (a former SLO-based artists who now lives and works in San Francisco), Judy Johnson-Williams (a former Bay Area artist now living and working in Atascadero), Peg Grady (a New York-born multimedia artist now living and working in Santa Margarita), and Corinne Lightweaver (a Los Angeles-based multimedia artist). Though not produced specifically for the COVID 19 moment we are all living through, these works nevertheless draw on themes and emotions that are now squarely before all of us in the current passage: feelings of isolation, fear, hope, and new possibilities— all co-existing at once in our evolving new reality. To capture the moment, to inspire purposeful reflection, and to encourage a new and better way forward, we will focus our first real-time, in-person exhibit following the recent shutdown on content designed to help us cope in difficult circumstances. As a group of artists, the women artists featured in this show present uplifting bodies of work that can help to educate, inform, unite, and activate at a time of great societal need and concern.
