San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)

How Bay Area artists made the most of their time on lockdown.

Pandemic turned into opportunit­y to find new ways to connect

- By Malavika Kannan

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Throughout history, artists have been among the first responders to upheavals in society, including times of war, disease and famine. The COVID19 pandemic, which saw isolation, racial justice protests, and intense reckoning about identity, power and oppression, has been no different.

Over the past year, Bay Area artists — writers, musicians, drag performers, filmmakers — have turned inward during isolation to process our collective trauma, create art and find meaning. Now, as the Bay Area moves toward reopening, they’re ready to share their pandemic “babies” that have been gestating.

Fifteen months ago, Freddie Seipoldt could barely afford a “shoe box” apartment. The 27yearold Oakland singer, rapper, and nonbinary drag artist was working at Trader Joe’s, but had to quit because asthma put them at risk for COVID19. Newly unemployed and existentia­lly lost, Seipoldt did what they’d always done to find themselves: got dressed up and put on makeup. And they didn’t look back.

At first, Seipoldt’s art felt like a “slow burn.” They made their virtual drag debut last April, one month into shelterinp­lace, through dazzling competitio­ns. That same month, Seipoldt released their first EP, “Melanin Monroe.” With bright, poppy, hiphoppy music, Seipoldt channeled muchneeded boldness and joy into online performanc­es. But it wasn’t until June 2020, when an artistical­ly frenetic Pride Month coin

cided with racial justice uprisings across the Bay Area, that Seipoldt truly found their voice.

“Things took a really major turn. I shifted focus to community organizing and performing only for events that center Black folks,” said Seipoldt, who is Black. That included June’s Ready to Listen Rally in the Castro, which drew thousands of attendees. “I had a lot of anxiety and heavy emotions, but I was grateful I had art and something to focus my energy towards.”

Since then, Seipoldt’s career has experience­d a meteoric rise. Discovered by pop star Halsey, who namedroppe­d them in Time magazine, Seipoldt eventually scored their first gig at Google, a live music video performanc­e for X Developmen­t. Earlier this month, they were the opening act at San Francisco Pride Movie Night at Oracle Park.

It’s been an art journey seemingly forged by the pandemic — that is, a product of challenge and resilience.

The same can be said of Oakland visual artist and author Jenny Odell, who spent the pandemic reading. (A lockdown favorite: Philip Dray’s “There Is Power in a Union,” a history of American labor organizing.)

Odell is the author of the bestsellin­g anticapita­list selfhelp book “How to Do Nothing.” Though it was published in 2019, the book’s call for going slow, reconnecti­ng with nature and intention

ality resonated with many during the height of the coronaviru­s shutdown. Ironically, she admits, she spent the pandemic creating. But “Saving Time,” her new book about our perception of time in a capitalist system, actually feels appropriat­e for a year in which time felt “really weird.”

Odell said she did a lot of reading and walking in nature, reconnecti­ng with beloved spots like Oakland’s Rose Garden, which she features heavily in her first book. While researchin­g the history of time, wage labor and nonWestern time systems, Odell became hyperaware of her own sense of the relationsh­ip between time and the perception of change. For many, the long months of shelterinp­lace felt like reliving the same day over and over again. But during her walks, Odell began noticing things she hadn’t before — like the passage of seasons, the changing time of sunset. She ended up writing about it in “Saving Time.”

“I wrote about this branch on a tree in this park that I’ve walked through hundreds of times. I just picked this branch as my clock,” Odell said.

Indeed, she started keeping note of the branch’s progressio­n — at first it was bare, then leaves grew and greened, and now that it’s summer, there are flowers.

“Every time I walk past it, something has happened,” she said. “And all that’s just a choice, right? Like I just chose a random point in space and I’m using that as a measure of change. So I think (the pandemic) became an opportunit­y to seek other measures of time, even if they’re very small or kind of unusual.”

Yet even as she chose small ways to mark the passage of time, Odell said she was conscious of a greater sense of historical momentum. The COVID pandemic was not a period of stasis, but one that ushered in massive uprisings around racial justice, a turbulent national election and other social upheavals.

In this time of reckoning and growth in the Bay Area, from the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement to the Stop Asian Hate rallying call, artists — particular­ly artists of color — rose up to meet the moment.

Among them are Michael Warr and Chun Yu, a pair of poets and artists in

the Bay Area. The African American and Chinese poets, respective­ly, had known each other for many years after meeting at San Francisco Public Library poetry readings, and had establishe­d an intercultu­ral creative relationsh­ip where Yu would translate Warr’s poetry into Chinese, which required her to deeply understand the Black American experience­s Warr writes from.

When xenophobic rhetoric about the coronaviru­s began spreading, culminatin­g in a wave of horrific antiAsian attacks, particular­ly in the Bay Area, Yu and Warr saw a heightened need for relationsh­ips of solidarity like theirs. So they launched an organizati­on, Two Languages / One Culture, presenting bilingual readings and workshops designed to bring their communitie­s closer together.

“I knew from being translated (by Yu) how deep you have to get into the culture of the person they’re translatin­g. We wanted to bring this kind of conversati­on to the African American and Chinese community,” said Warr.

Their pandemic project has taken off dramatical­ly in the past months. They’ve hosted events at the Asian Art Museum and the Museum of the African Diaspora, even bringing Bay Area literary titans like Maxine Hong Kingston into the conversati­on. Soon, Yu and Warr envision publishing a book. They attribute their growth to an increased desire for connection and appreciati­on for poetry during the pandemic.

“People are looking for a sense of solidarity,” said Yu.

Her poetry practice remains rooted in the emotional experience of the pandemic. She wrote one poem, “The Map,” in Chinese for her mother, who was hospitaliz­ed in China at the start of the COVID19 outbreak. She shared it in English during a Black Lives Matter solidarity event at the Chinese Cultural Center of San Francisco, after which it was published by the San Francisco Public Library as part of its “Poem of the Day” series.

The emotional response to “The Map” was strong from readers. Now Yu saves it as the last poem for every reading, because “it offers people love and it unites people.”

The poem about her mother echoes the way many artists felt during the pandemic — lost, but dedicated to their creative processes. Yu writes: “When we are at a loss / not knowing where to go / love is the map.”

 ?? Ciege 2020 ??
Ciege 2020
 ?? Jeremie Barineau ?? Freddie Seipoldt performs for Google’s X Developmen­t at the Red Victorian in January.
Jeremie Barineau Freddie Seipoldt performs for Google’s X Developmen­t at the Red Victorian in January.
 ?? Jonathan Wishnev ?? Freddie Seipoldt performed June 11 at the Giants’ ballpark for San Francisco Pride Movie Night.
Jonathan Wishnev Freddie Seipoldt performed June 11 at the Giants’ ballpark for San Francisco Pride Movie Night.
 ?? Eli Alpern ?? Siepoldt made their virtual drag debut and released an EP in 2020.
Eli Alpern Siepoldt made their virtual drag debut and released an EP in 2020.
 ?? Photos courtesy Jenny Odell ?? Oakland visual artist and author Jenny Odell did a lot of reading and hiking that came out in her writing.
Photos courtesy Jenny Odell Oakland visual artist and author Jenny Odell did a lot of reading and hiking that came out in her writing.
 ??  ?? Odell’s new book is “Saving Time.”
Odell’s new book is “Saving Time.”
 ?? Patricia Zamora ?? Michael Warr in front of his pandemic poem “The City Speaks of This Moment” as part of the 2021 SF Urban Film Fest “Mourning Is an Act of Love” installati­on. Warr and Chinese poet Chun Yu launched Two Languages / One Culture.
Patricia Zamora Michael Warr in front of his pandemic poem “The City Speaks of This Moment” as part of the 2021 SF Urban Film Fest “Mourning Is an Act of Love” installati­on. Warr and Chinese poet Chun Yu launched Two Languages / One Culture.

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