I an a member of a group of women artists called the First Sunday Group. The group is based on a pot luck dinner on the first Sunday of every month, and we also try to support each other in their lives and especially their careers. This group has been meeting for decades. It has been the encouragement and feedback each of us needed to be successful in our work, and many of us have had impressive accomplishments in our careers.

COVID has made the usual plan impossible. After a failed Zoom meeting, we have communicated more successfully by using email. The new plan is to send everybody in the group an update in the beginning of the month, and the discussion goes on from there. You will notice that even though a message might be directed to one person, everybody gets a copy. It’s the same as if we were all having the discussion around a dinner table.

From Roberta Morgan
to the group

This year hasn’t been great one for my painting. I came down with a nasty virus for about six weeks starting shortly before the end of the end of January. Ferrets can catch human viruses, but Atlas catches stuff  from me because I’m the one who goes out without being in a carrier, so he caught this virus from me. So for a wile we shared the misery. He got better more easily than I did.
After six weeks I was confused and in bad shape generally. I called my sister because I was getting scared, and when she came over she figured out that I had gradually stopped eating. Once I fixed that, I felt much better. My apartment, on the other hand needed some work, and I’ve been taking more time than I want to cleaning it.
I’m back to painting, though it’s been a slow process to get back to work. I’m still studying Vermeer’s process when painting brick walls. I wanted to look at some other people, but I wasn’t finding them because my books were only roughly sorted when I moved in. So I spent the July 4th weekend sorting books. I’m about halfway through that. I’ve found what I was looking for, and this looking at other artists has me figuring out what I want to do with this painting.
I found that the view out the window in the gym in my building shows the back of the liquor store/pretend grocery store next to my building. that place along with other buildings around it have made a forest of additions and sometimes clumsy changes. I’ve enclosed one of the photographs I’m working from, as well as my start of the painting. I’m still working on all of the surfaces. As you can see, I’ve found that if you put a lot of detail in the foreground, the brick walls farther back can more easily be made to read like brick walls. I haven’t made any decisions about text or abstract elements yet. I think there will be several paintings coming out of this general scene because there’s a lot that’s nice all around what this photograph shows.
Roberta

From Barbara Wolanin
To Roberta Morgan &cc to group

Roberta, a lot of challenges— this will be a striking painting— interesting to see your source.  Wonder if you got an early case of covid and maybe you have immunity now….and sorting books!  Barbara

To Barbara Wolanin
from Roberta Morgan & cc to group

Barbara,

Truthfully, I don’t know if I had COVID. Late in April, I was watching MSNBC, and Nicole Wallace interviewed a scientist who said that COVID was here months before we became aware of it. He said it was circulating in the US at least by January. After the interview was over and his window closed, Wallace sat thinking for a few seconds and then said, “I had this really nasty virus in Febuary, and this makes me wonder what that was.” Somebody else, I can’t remember who, said that they had something like that as well. This got me wondering.

My symptoms were: lots of sinus congestion, a wet cough, aches, even more exhaustion than usual, loss of appetite. The symptoms for COVID are: chest congestion, dry cough, fever, aches, loss of smell and taste. There are more symptoms of COVID that they are adding as they learn of this disease. The fact that my congestion was in my sinuses may be due that lots of viruses do this to me, and these days chest congestion is rare for me. My cough was a wet cough because of the location of my congestion, but I remember that I was always frustrated because I couldn’t clear my throat satisfactorily because I couldn’t get all of the congestion that was bothering me. I have no idea whether I had a fever because my lupus causes twenty minute fevers several times a day. My loss of appetite could be from a loss of taste and smell. So I don’t know.

If it was COVID it upset me that I asked my sister to come over because she has a terminal lung disease. I guess we were lucky because it was late in my problems and I was no longer shedding virus. In fact I may have gotten over the virus, and my problem was that I wasn’t eating enough. I’m also left of my memory of my 2 1/2 pound apartment mate, laying with his chest to the floor and his legs spread out struggling to cough up his congestion, while I fretted about the fact that all you can do with a virus is tough it out. We don’t have effective antivirals et. Medical intervention can relieve extreme symptoms, but the price of that is that you can catch more stuff in a hospital. So Atlas and I made it.

They don’t know how much Immunity you get after you recover. I have heard that scientists are disappointed with the sort length of time it seems to last. But I’m feeling great now.

Roberta

From Elaine Langerman
To Roberta Morgan & cc to group

I’m so sorry you’ve been through such a bad time. Pix of your ferret?

But, oh, organizing books! How great is that??!!!!! Congratulations on that brave accomplishment.

Your project sounds fascinating—Vermeer-he’s one of my all-time favorites!!!!

I look forward to hearing about what happens next.

Very best,
Elaine
From Elaine Langerman
to Roberta Morgan & cc to group

Just read your email to Barbara,

It sure sounds like Covid . . .

To Barbara Wolanin
from Roberta Morgan & cc to group

So glad you are feeling fine now— despite the lupus fevers etc.  I saw Tom Hanks interviewed yesterday– he had covid and said he is being tested for antibodies and they are decreasing over time.  So much no one know about this thing— and scary about the numbers going up in so many states now after people crazily thought it was somehow safer when you opened up places!  Let’s just keep hoping for an effective vaccine.
Barbara

From Roberta Morgan
To Elaine Langerman & cc to group

I can’t resist a request for pictures of Atlas. When I’m depressed, he holds up the sky.

Roberta

From Elaine Langerman
to Roberta Morgan & cc to group

What a cutie-pie!
Globe-supporter!

From Roberta Morgan
to Elaine Langerman & cc to group

Elaine, 

It does sound like COVID though I can’t prove it scientifically. It makes sense that I would catch it. I live in the Mount Vernon area of Baltimore and close to Penn Station. I’ve been going through the past months with a feeling of terror- that I came perilously close to killing my sister.

Roberta

From Peggy Fleming
To Roberta Morgan & cc to group

Thanks for sharing your news Roberta. And so glad that you are ok now. Keep sending photos of your painting as you work on it. I’m impressed!

Hugs ?
Peggy
: )

From Elaine Langerman
to Roberta Morgan & cc to group

I dearly hope no.