Chris Perry

Ridgefield Guild of Artists

Hometown: Ridgefield, CT

What have you have been doing during this time? After an initial 2 weeks of obsessively reading everything I could find about the virus during the beginning of the stay-at-home order, I put all that aside and have been spending more time in the studio than I have in years, working on my own work and building/maintaining a new website for the Ridgefield Guild of Artists to mount their online exhibitions.  I also have caught up on books that I always wanted to read, those 1000-page classics we all mean to read, but never seem to get around to.

What are your personal highlights and lowlights of this time?  The highlights are a new line of book pieces that are smaller and more intimate, something I haven’t done for many years, while the lowlights are a troubling pessimism about the way we will have to live in our world with the virus.

Are there any changes or introductions you’ve made to your life that you plan to hang on to once ‘normalcy’ resumes?  In order to stay as safe as possible I have had to change the way I shop and do my errands. Grocery shopping occurs once every ten days, no gym––walks in the hood instead, eBooks from the library, all to avoid contact. It means far fewer miles driven––a good thing itself––all things I will continue if and when the self-imposed sequestration is ever lifted.

If you had to describe this time in one word – what word would it be?  Worrisome.

Can you tell us about your updated photograph? It’s a book piece I created during this time. The title is: 195 Ripples: water(sample).  It is an altered book measuring 9” x 7” x 4.”