CASPER, Wyo. (AP) - Mary Sommers suddenly found herself with time on her hands when the Casper bar she worked at closed, joining many businesses across Wyoming to do so under the governor’s orders meant to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The busy mother and co-founder of the Casper Writers’ Guild was not used to free time or spending time at home. She has found music, books and other art forms crucial to helping her cope during the coronavirus pandemic, and she’s far from alone. Many have turned to arts during a crisis that’s impacted lives in various ways.
Sommers at first was “freaking out a little” and still finds the cabin fever trying at times.
“But when I started doing more art and keeping myself busy and reading more and listening to music, it just keeps my mind directed on positive things, even if it’s not a positive piece of art or music, and keeps me from dwelling on how scary this all is.
To not just be sitting at home dwelling on worst-case scenarios or dwelling on the fact of where’s your money going to come in from, that type of thing.”
Relevance and reassurance
Music helps Sommers find balance and calm, the Casper Star-Tribune reported.
“I find music that seems relevant right now to be very reassuring, even if it does have like a darker tone,” she said.
Songs she’s been listening to include Father John Misty’s “I Love You, Honeybear,” set in an apocalyptic event. Another is Amanda Palmer’s “The Ride,” which Sommers describes as “kind of a sad and dark but reassuring song about not taking life too seriously, just kind of enjoying the fact that you’re on a ride. And even if it gets scary, we’re all on the ride together.”
She turns to music that’s validating rather than escapist, though books lately have provided an important escape. She read “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman in three days and plans to listen to the author’s “The Ocean at the End of the Lane” on audiobook even though she normally reads nonfiction, she said.
“I have a hard time suspending disbelief. But I think maybe with everything being so crazy and unbelievable right now that I’m like, ‘Oh, well, I guess anything’s possible.’”
Starting a new book, inspired at home
Artist, musician, poet and retired teacher Vicki Windle has long been a familiar face at numerous local arts events ranging from her booth at art walks to her spot in audiences, if not on stage, at music shows. Her asthma puts her at risk of the worst COVID-19 effects, so she’ll have to be cautious even after the crisis until a vaccine is available, she explained. Until then, she likely won’t be able to sell her work at events like the Beartrap Summer Festival or Funky Junk.
“So that’s going to make it different, but it’s not the end of the world. But it’s the end of this chapter for a while at least. Or maybe I can close that book for now and set it aside while I start a new book. And then I can go back to the old book, if I have time for it, if it works.”
Windle misses the live music and writing groups. She’s been listening to CDs she’s picked up at local shows and catching friends’ livestream performances on social media. She can picture the expressions of Cory McDaniel, Chad Lore, Red Butte and others and even see Steve Frame’s distinctive dance step in her mind as she listens to recordings.
She’s appreciating her collection of local visual artists’ work and reading poetry in email newsletters and the Poem-a-Day from poets.org. She’s fortunate for financial stability, to live with her significant other so she’s not alone and for the many ways to connect with others digitally, she said.
“It has been a big change. But then again, it’s been kind of an opportunity to slow down and appreciate what I already have.”
Coping with stress
T.J. Day, a musician in a Casper punk band who works at an assisted living facility, said arts have always helped her cope with stress.
“Drawing after work always helps me or just watching a movie.”
It’s a stressful time with fears about unknowingly carrying the virus to the residents she loves at work and frustration like people hoarding and not leaving resources for others, she said.
Day misses band practice and local music shows, although social distancing hasn’t been tough because she otherwise didn’t go out much even before the crisis. She has more time to draw and write songs by herself as well as reread some of her favorite books and stories. She recently reread Edgar Allan Poe’s “Mask of the Red Death” about a plague and plans to read Albert Camus’ “La Peste,” a story about a plague.
“I guess maybe it’s not so unique what I’m doing, because a lot of people are rereading and watching movies about pandemics,” she said. “But it’s cool that these old authors already wrote about these things even before modern-century movies that everybody’s rewatching.”
Music she listens to hasn’t changed much, although 1980s Japanese pop music has lately been a good escape on walks by herself.
“And you’re just listening to this, like, really happy pop-sounding Japanese music and, yeah, it just like feels really good.”
More time for art
Retired English professor and arts advocate Bruce Richardson normally spends a great deal of time reading and enjoying a variety of art forms. He’s taking in even more lately, mainly because he normally also watches a lot of professional basketball, which is on hold because of the pandemic.
Instead, he’s been watching more plays from many options online, including works of contemporary playwrights Annie Baker and Caryl Churchill as well as Shakespeare, who created much of his best work during the plague outbreak in 1603 that shut down the Globe Theatre.
He’s enjoying Wyoming artists’ posts on Facebook, including daily readings by poets David Romvedt and Matt Daly as well as dramatic monologues by Anne Mason of Laramie-based Relative Theatrics.
He enjoyed Karen Russell’s “Orange World” and described it in a message as “a great mix of disturbing fantastic stuff, vivid writing and thoughtful inspiration.”
Some of what he’s reading has changed just a little, he said. He’s revisiting literary classics about plagues and pandemics, which already are a large feature in his field and past classes.
“Shakespeare and Chaucer, who lived through plagues that depopulated their country and city, remind me that great art can come out of great distress,” he wrote in the message.
Another is Defoe’s “A Journal of the Plague Year” about what it was like to be in London during the Great Plague in 1665.
“I’m surprised that I was reading that because it’s a very distressing book, but it does give you a sense that our situation is quite different and not anywhere near as bad, so I guess that’s something,” he said. “And it also gives you plenty of experiences about crazy, crazy things that people do during epidemics. And so the fact that folks are sometimes behaving or saying odd things or acting in funny ways is not a surprise.”
Watching ‘what-ifs’ and calming the savage beast
Natrona County High School film teacher Lance Madzey is a filmmaker himself and of course a fan of cinema.
“Usually people go to something that’s comforting. But I’ve been eating up ‘Contagion’ and zombie films and H.P. Lovecraft films - anything where there’s people tossed into a situation that they can’t handle or that’s totally new for them. And of course ‘The Stand.’ So I’ve been checking out Stephen King. But stuff like that just to kind of hit my brain with a hammer. And for some reason that’s given me the escapism I need. It’s really strange.”
The pandemic forced school closures at the time of the semester when his students are amping up to do their best work. He strives to be creative with remote learning, and this generation is used to connecting with one another on their phones, he explained. Still, film is about creating experiences together.
“It’s frustrating and anger inducing, and I think I’ve mourned a little bit because, well, it’s just that that’s an experience, that’s an awesome thing,” he said. “I get to be there with them when they’re doing those things.”
In some films he’s rewatched like “Land of the Dead,” he sees similarities in what’s happening today and relevant metaphors.
“I think artists do that best, at showing us the mirror of ourselves, you know, make us think. And the virus is definitely doing that right now, that’s for sure. I mean, it shows us what the best is of humanity and what the worst is.”
Filmmakers envision future possibilities, “because, I think, as filmmakers, we always ask ourselves, ‘What if? What if this were to happen?’” he asked. “And that’s exactly what ‘Contagion’ is. It’s scary how close it is.”
He believes thinking about bad things that could happen isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“That’s how we survived in caves when we were ape dudes and stuff,” he laughed. “There could be a tiger out there and I don’t want to get eaten. So I’ll just wait till the daylight and when I can see.”
He learned in a theater class about the idea of catharsis in watching characters encounter great difficulties, but film and other arts offer catharsis as well, he said.
Music also has helped him cope, and lately he’s been listening to a lot of the mellower songs of Swedish metal band Opeth.
“Oh, most definitely. It calms the savage beast.”
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