The Covid 19 pandemic became a life changing reality in March 2020.  Everything changed.  Self-isolation became a necessity.  Masks covering one's nose and mouth were a necessity for survival.  When going cautiously out into the world, distancing oneself for at least six feet from others became the norm, as did continuous lengthy washing of hands.  This pandemic changed everything.

 

 

The time that we have all shared as a result of Covid has changed our lives and the world as we knew it.  As a response to the loneliness of the isolation and to send hope and positivity into the world, artist David E. Stone, in late March 2020, started sending his children a daily text that simply read, "Good Morning".  Soon, he started expanding his morning texts to other family members and friends.  The intention had always been to just send a positive message out into the world everyday.  For the recipients, that knowledge that someone is reaching out who cares, that offers an open forum for connection with another human.  Only a small handful of people asked to opt out.  There was never a request or expectation that those receiving the texts were to respond.  Some people replied in a variety of ways and some did not.

 

 

Artist Devon Paulson accepted the morning message as a "call and response" opportunity and started replying.  At first, his replies were focused on word plays and formatting references on the Good Morning phrase.   As his "replies" continued, it soon became apparent that this was a digital update of the classic Surrealist/Dada group art experience, "Exquisite Corpse".  His replies went from typed responses to conceptual imagery related to the morning messages to observations of the human condition vis-a-vis himself.  These self portrait works (both photography and drawing) never featured more than one human which reinforced the loneliness of the pandemic isolation. Even when he draws his father and mother, his reference to them both is that the likeness he has drawn is what he "thinks they look like" because due to isolation, he hasn't seen them in a long time.  Although Paulson's replies were very much conceptual art responses, there was never any discussion or invitation made with or to him that these could also be an art exhibition at Another Year in LA.  

 

 

Now, as we start another year; still, with Covid, we felt that Good Morning is a fun, hopeful and artistic way of ushering in the new year - 2022