The work of Southern Vermont artist, Linda Rubinstein, follows in the tradition of women who have chronicled their lives through journals. Unlike those who precede her, she integrates word with image – catching everyday experience before it dissolves; exploring memory; and making sense of the present. The siege of the Coronavirus that is gripping the world, significantly affects each of us. There is no “ordinary” now. We arise each morning and whole days roll together weighted by the enormous tragedy of the pandemic. We wait for assurances, we grieve over the unimaginable death rates, we don masks, and still the desire for normalcy is sometimes overwhelming. As Linda tells it, “I began this journal to make a stab at reflecting on the pandemic. I let the images guide me, starting with small personal events affecting my life, and gradually looking at the global reality . As visual social commentary, Pandemic Journal captures what I would like to recall and what should not be forgotten.
