“Being an Artist During Our Pandemic” - Friday, March 20, 2020

A week ago, the World Health Organization declared the global spread of Covid-19, a perplexing coronavirus, an official pandemic. A week and a half ago, people thought the mandatory closing of businesses and an actual declaration of a pandemic would be unthinkable. Now, regardless of what you call it: “shelter in place,” “safer at home,” or “stay the fuck inside,” worldwide, no one can leave their homes.

I’m a full-time artist (writer-director-photographer). For 10 years, I did the nine-to-five day job thing while doing the 5-to-midnight artist thing. It’s not for the faint hearted.

Last year, on April 5, I finally quit my very stable, six-figure, full-time job, with its “boring” reliable healthcare plan and “uninteresting” employer-matched retirement plan, without a strategy, healthcare or retirement plan. I believed, however, that if I trusted God and myself, I would find my way. The next day, I rented an office in a coworking space atop the 35th floor of a high-rise in downtown L.A. I didn’t want to miss a day of doing the work of the trusting-God-trusting-myself plan, and if I had an office to which I had to show up, I could ensure that I wouldn’t miss a day. From the 35th floor, I’d look out passed downtown to LAX and Long Beach, and everything in between, and I would remind myself, “There has to be a ‘yes’ out there somewhere.”

I found my way.

On my last day at work, when I was walking from my job to the bus stop one final “See-ya-suckas” time, I realized that I had just awaken from a decade-long, comatose hibernation. I’d been asleep, hunkered down in the open belly of a tree somewhere starless, lonely, and forgotten. I’ve spent these last 11 months adjusting my eyes to the light. They don’t tell you how bright discovering who you truly are is. Take it from me: bring sunglasses.

With no boss to disappoint, no coworkers to avoid, and no poorly-executed meetings to dread, the first few months on my own as an artist were disorienting. Monday through Saturday, and sometimes Sundays, I’d sit in my office for 8 or 9 hours with no conviction of how to best spend the time. I cried a lot. I accidentally walked into the corner Parisian bakery a lot. I wondered if quitting my stable job was the right decision a lot. I didn’t give up a lot.

By August, I had begun to develop the next iteration of my film, “Another Slave Narrative,” into an episodic series that reimagines the 1930s WPA interviews of formerly enslaved African-Americans in a 21st Century context. What I’d come up with, no one had done before. By December, I had a manager, another ten-year journey, and my episodic series had a growing Emmy-winning cast and creative team. By January, I wrote an acclaimed peer-reviewed series pilot endorsed by scholars, faith-leaders, and artists across the country. By February 1) professors at Yale and Cornell invited me to lecture on the series 2) I was certain I had discovered my true vocation, namely to transform how the world relates to the legacy of slavery of African-Americans through my series, 3) I expected to launch the multimillion dollar fundraising campaign to produce our series in a few weeks. By the first week of March, the WHO declared a pandemic, the stock market signaled an imminent “Oh shit! This is really happening” recession, and Hollywood, along with the rest of the world, shut down.

By Saturday, I fell into despair. I was convinced that no one could care about enslaved narratives in the midst of a pandemic.

It’s a strange thing to watch 11 months of personal purpose, filled with faith, gratitude, clarity, and conviction, seemingly dissolve in less than a week. Some recommended I find comfort in knowing that I am not alone—many feel lost now. Yet, knowing that so many are hurting, because of vanished jobs, devastated dreams, and love ones now gone, it not only makes we wonder if these last 11 months of self-discovery, while self-absorbed, really happened, but if they even mattered.

They did.

I moved to downtown L.A. for the pseudo-Brooklyn/New York energy I gave up in 2014 for the Angelino, artist life I now have. Most days, downtown L.A. is chaotic—too crazy, unpredictable, and sometimes dangerous (I was grabbed once) for even tough New Yorkers. They often leave DTLA for Los Feliz.

More room for us.

To hear myself think over the cacophony that is downtown L.A., I kept my 10th story windows closed. Nowadays, I open them to let the novel downtown silence overwhelm the loudness of my solitary thoughts in a solitary apartment. Social-distancing has its consequences.

I am scared: 1) of the pandemic’s impact on y(our) loved ones 2) of the unprecedented financial ruin headed y(our) way 3) of the long lines around gun shops by scared first-time gun owners 4) of the loss of my dream to transform how the world relates to the legacy of slavery with my episodic series in a very specific way on a very specific timeline. I’ve planned many things. I didn’t plan a backup plan.

In many ways, this last week has felt like the end of the world, and in certain ways, it is. In the same way 9/11 ended a type of world we knew up until September 10, 2001, March 11, 2020 changed a type of world we knew through March 10. I take solace that we’re discovering this new world together.

I made a commitment, I don’t remember when, that I would do everything I could to ensure that I honored our enslaved ancestors and helped to transform how the world relates to them through our episodic series, if it was the last thing I did. I confessed, “If it is the last thing I did,” with such glee and confidence, maybe even with arrogance and ignorance, that I had no appreciation of just how soon that last thing might be. Tomorrow has never been promised, but damn if that doesn’t feel truer now than ever before for those of us who thought college-degrees and first-world borders would protect us. I’m a female descendant of enslaved African-Americans. I should have known better.

I am grateful that I left my secure nine-to-five last April in favor of discovering who I truly am: an artist. I am grateful that I have spent 11 months trusting God and myself, as well as the ancestors, the universe, friends, and colleagues, in the process. I’m more alive now, living on savings, faith, and an expensive out-of-pocket health plan, than I ever was when I resented my career, consistent salary and taken-for-granted employee benefits.

Because I come from men and women who endured slavery while believing, at the very least, in themselves and their dreams, I remain committed 1) to doing everything I can to honor them and 2) to help transform how our world relates to the narrative of slavery with the production of our episodic series.

I’m hopeful it won’t be the last thing that I do.