‘Let’s Zoom’ shows artists’ lives during pandemic

MOUNT CLEMENS — While the COVID-19 pandemic affected everyone, art capturing the feelings and effects of this period is just beginning to be explored.

One project looking to illustrate the experience of this era is the traveling art show “Let’s Zoom!” The show makes its final stop at the Anton Art Center from June 3 to July 5.

“Since about late 2020, early 2021, it was first put together by a metro Detroit artist named Marta Carvajal,” said Stephanie Hazzard, exhibition manager for the Anton Art Center. “Initially, she got in touch with another artist, her name is Amanda Koss, and they got together and they molded the project from there for a couple years.”

The Carvajal-Koss duo took inspiration from the limiting confines of a video call screen and put out a call for artists to create a self-portrait that could be presented via a 12-by-12-inch canvas.

“I put a call for art out throughout our artist communities, just posting on social media,” Koss said. “I had an email list I shared that to.”

Between online posts, media exposure and word of mouth, Carvajal and Koss attracted more than 70 artists of various ages, styles and professional backgrounds to create portraits for the show.

“Some went very literal with what was actually going on in their lives, and some kind of just created a snapshot,” Koss said. “We have one child, he created a snapshot of his daily life and how that changed. It showed him at his computer doing schoolwork. Christina Haylett did a piece where her cat is crawling all over her while she’s trying to do a Zoom call.”

Other artists took a more abstract approach, like Dione Tripp’s colorful spring-filled submission and Carol Kellogg’s fiber art piece for the project.

“She created a fiber art piece, and she left the head open,” Koss said. “You can go into Anton and pull the brain out, and there’s a little box she created as the brain. And in there she created little fabric pictures and each one is supposed to be (Kellogg’s) thoughts and curiosity in the artist, and every single piece of fabric she used has some type of symbolism.”

Some of the fabric in Kellogg’s piece was sourced from a map of Michigan, and the piece is mounted to the canvas with buttons from her late husband’s shirt.

“As it is traveling around, he is traveling around with her,” Koss said.

The works in “Let’s Zoom!” will not travel around much longer soon. The Anton Art Center exhibit is the last stop on this 10-show tour, and its closing will mark the end of Koss’ first curated show.

“Running the show was a lot more work than I initially anticipated, but I do feel it was very rewarding in the sense of the unity and connection and friendships that we all built together,” Koss said. “We had three totes that we’ve been dragging around for about three years now, storing it, creating tags, doing all of the proposals … it’s been a labor of love for sure.

Art from the show will be either returned to the artists or sold in bulk if a buyer can be found. Koss says Marygrove College has expressed interest in the collection.

Until the doors close on July 5, visitors can glimpse into the lives of artists in a pandemic at the Anton Art Center from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday with free admission.

More information about the Anton Art Center can be found at theartcenter.org.

Macomb Township-based Koss, who works as an abstract impressionist and has since been selected to curate shows and collections for Crain’s Communications and Amazon, can be reached for inquiries at amandakossart@gmail.com. Her work can be found at www.amandakossart.com while Carvajal’s can be found at www.martacarvajal.art.