Artist Delivers Message From Kitchen

As the evening light began to fade on Pearl Street, a message began to appear in one of the first-floor windows. The letters emerged from a warm, yellow field of fabric: ​“Fear is a terrible driver and a worse tour guide.”

It was the third of many projected daily messages that are the latest project from artist Martha Lewis, who, like many artists, is adapting to practicing art during the Covid-19 outbreak.

When the outbreak began and rules for isolation and social distancing were put in place, Lewis found herself thinking: ​“What kind of art would be art for now?” She thought of ways people might still connect with each other, not just through technology, but from neighbor to neighbor.

“I was joking about improving our semaphore and our Morse code skills, but not really,” she said. She thought of the legend that people in the Underground Railroad sent messages in quilt patterns.

She thought of hobo signs. She mulled the prospect of a project possibly involving flags; another one maybe involving laundry hanging outside.

Then ​“I realized that my kitchen window faces the street,” she said.

Thanks to years of making art, Lewis happened to have a lot of things around her apartment to use. And, ​“This uses my old overhead projector,” Lewis said — a device she has used in previous art pieces. The only problem: ​“Yesterday the lightbulb blew.” With a lot of businesses closed, a replacement bulb is a little harder to come by than usual. So Lewis ordered a new bulb and made do with what she had. ​“Right now I have a jury-rigged system” using a light bulb and some LED lights ​“that is pretty good,” she said. And ​“I will have a handsome set of new bulbs shortly.” Lewis also had a yellow silk sari to dress the window and to act as a screen. And she had a lot of office supplies, including transparencies that she could feed through a printer, which resulted in projections with ​“that old Xerox look to it that I like.”

What Lewis built was enough to convey the message. And it was in keeping with the way Lewis thinks of many of her pieces. ​“All of my projects have this MacGyver-esque quality to them, where I figure things out and they last as long as the project needs — for better or for worse,” she said. ​“I turn everything into an art project,” she added wryly. ​“It’d be nice if I could just repair something instead of just doing things to it.”

The first message she printed and projected, on March 29: ​“Now is a great time to start a utopian art project.”

The second day’s message: ​“Illuminate darkness with creative gestures and small repairs.” Lewis has drawn up dozens more possible messages to consider. In addition to projecting it onto the window of her East Rock home, she’s posting it on social media and is considering making prints of the messages.

Making something work with whatever she already has around has been helpful to Lewis in adapting to the realities of life during the Covid-19 outbreak. It has also given her the chance to think a little more broadly. ​“I’m worried about money,” she said. But she considers herself fortunate, too. ​“It’s a real luxury to be able to stay home and wash your hands all the time. Some people don’t have houses or soap, and we haven’t been helping them very much.” For herself, she said, ​“I’ve been very poor. I’ve lived on nothing. I have skills to trade. I’m used to doing things in an improvised way.” And she thinks about her family history. ​“My French grandmother grew up in Normandy in World War II and they survived it,” she said.

She has kept doing her radio show, Live Culture, on WPKN. Talking to listeners and playing music for them, she said, is ​“the best kind of therapy.”

She is assiduously following the public health orders asking people to stay at home unless absolutely necessary, and to practice social distancing when out; in the course of this interview, both of us moved from sidewalk to street and driveway to make way for passersby.

But it ​“bothers me,” she said, ​“that it falls into the administration’s hands. We can’t collectively protest.” The outbreak, and following the guidelines, ​“forces us all into this seemingly acquiescent mode where we’re inside, not making a fuss. How do you clearly express yourself?”

“I’m trying not to get too preachy,” she said. ​“I don’t want it to be pompous and verbose.” She also wanted the messages to be ​“more or less posirtive. There’s enough negative.”

“I love aphorisms,” and ​“I want to be able to look outward and express things outwardly,” — to ​“not be silenced,” she said. ​“We have one life on this earth. I’m in my 50s. I want to eat every good thing in every day. They’re not going to take that away from me.”

And Lewis finds places for hope, too. ​“Artists and art tend to be undermined and undervalued,” she said. ​“Now that this is happening, art is everything to everyone. Netflix and cooking” — along with the outpouring of music and visual art on social media — ​“all of those things are art…. All we do is consume art.”

“It’s good to have things slow down and be more introspective,” she added. ​“There was a nice day, and people were out and walking their dogs as if they had never been outside before…. It is remarkable how good people are being to each other.”