Thanksgiving With Covid Style

Year after year I have proudly shared my Thanksgiving and Seder tables. Decorating and preparing the table settings have been my favorite part of festive holidays -- and friends and family have enjoyed looking at photos of the creative table settings. I routinely painted tablecloths, adapted themed decorations, found unusual dishes, and used plants and flowers from my yard to reinvent the possibilities.

This year a new dimension of creativity was called into action for Covid-19 style and safety.

This year, the number of people was reduced to only a few neighbors. 
Three tables were spaced 10 feet or more apart, which used the entire length of our outdoor deck.

Two people from each household at a table.

Table setting had to be implemented quickly to avoid problems with animals, and wind. There were individual flowers at every table. The "flowers" were mostly from my yard. A challenge to see the potential with new eyes and some creativity. 

I loved the orange seed pods with the orange dots on the vase (below.)

 The red berries looked great in a red vase.

For the safety of guests and hosts, no one was allowed inside. After checking for personal requests, I brought out a full plate of food for each person.  Once everyone was served, we ate outside in the seasonally cool air with jackets and hats on, and fortunately warmed by the fall sunshine -- all socially distanced at our seats. All of us wore masks if we moved around.

Learning to entertain with social distancing requires a new repertoire of social skills -- and advanced planning along with layers of clothing to stay warm -- for me, four shirts and a sweatshirt for the middle of the afternoon.

For us, Thanksgiving 2020 was a new adventure with unprecedented challenges that will be remembered as a special event in a most unusual year.  Yet every day, I am conscious that the sustaining goal is a healthy future for all.

Stay safe and socially distant for the holidays.   

Harriete 

 A few Thanksgiving Tables from Past Years:
(I think I should make a book with all my holiday tables so you can do this too.
Thanksgiving 2019



Thanksgiving 2017 in Black and White

Artistic Expression and Being an Artist 2016

Vintage Visual Feast Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving 2014 


Setting the Thanksgiving Table

Gelt, Gilt, and Guilt

Thanksgiving Visual Feast Giving Thanks 2012 with a Mondrian Theme for the table and food.

Thanksgiving 2010


Thanksgiving 2009

 

The Font of Experience "InFlux"

In the time of COVID-19, daily existence seems fractured.  Efforts to move forward feel constrained, challenging, and like a never-ending series of marathons filled with obstacle courses.  To cope, I try to focus on the expectation that this will all be a memory some time in the future.

 

There have been other historical eras impacted by plagues, natural disasters, and political upheavals. In the late 1960's, I was a much younger version of myself, but the daily news brought images of shocking political unrest and social change into every home.

 

This current intersection of political upheaval, pandemic, wildfires, hurricanes, and social change makes the book, "In Flux: American Jewelry and the Counterculture,"  especially apropos and relevant.  The book covers art jewelry of the 1960s, '70s, and early '80s. (More about this book in another post.) My metalwork from that time period is included because much of it exemplifies the emerging feminist frustrations of the time. 

On Thursday, November 19, Cindi Straus will be leading a conversation with me and Joyce J. Scott.  The  conversation is titled "American Jewelry and the Counter Culture."  We will discuss our early experiences as makers in the turbulent and politically exciting period of the 1970s and early 1980s -- and possibly how our past exposure in those social  disturbances has influenced our work to the present day.  Do the values and issues of our formative years as makers relate to or inform us in these current events?

Zoom makes it possible for everyone to listen in to this one-hour conversation.  You don't have to travel to New York or spend any money on hotels.  Zoom right into this conversation about how the politics of that time changed us and changed art jewelry and metalwork forever.

 

This event is presented as part of New York City Jewelry Week in partnership with Art Jewelry Forum, both of which are financial sponsors of "In Flux: American Jewelry and the Counterculture."

 

Cindi Strauss is the Sara and Bill Morgan Curator of Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design for the Houston Museum of Fine Art. As a curator, she will be asking the questions to me and Joyce J. Scott. 

 

Both artists have art jewelry currently on view in 45 Stories in Jewelry: 1947 to Now at the Museum of Art and Design in New York.  We will discuss our early experiences as makers in the turbulent and politically exciting events of the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s.

 

The online event is free for MAD Members and Art Jewelry Forum members, but anyone can pay a small fee to listen in to the conversation. Learn more by clicking here.

 

MAD Members, please email [email protected] to receive your promo code for free tickets.

AJF Members may email [email protected].

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