Those at the highest risk of contracting the coronavirus infection, as one might expect, are health care workers, including registered nurses, paramedics and doctors. So if you wanted to avoid catching the coronavirus this is a time that you should be grateful for being an artist.
Fine artists, including painters, sculptors, and illustrators, have a remarkably low risk for contacting the disease, according to new data compiled by the New York Times. The chart plots two axes—the degree of physical proximity to others inherent in the profession, and how frequently the different occupations bring their workers into contact with disease.
Art is the second-safest career, with a physical proximity score of nine and a disease exposure of zero. That ranks it behind only loggers, who score one on exposure and seven on proximity, and just ahead of authors and writers, who are at zero on exposure but 14 on proximity.
Curators, on the other hand, are clustered solidly in the lower middle of the pack, ranking five for exposure and 44 for proximity. (The amount of travel required by the job probably doesn’t help.) Museum conservators, meanwhile, score zero for disease, but 55 for proximity (presumably since they cannot do their job from home). Graphic designers have comparatively less risk: they score zero for exposure and 34 for how close they typically get to other people.
So is it too late to take up art? Perhaps it is worth thinking about Yayoi Kusama who has just turned 91 and is still making art. She is also someone who chose a life of ‘social distancing’ having moved into a psychiatric hospital in Japan over 40 years ago. Her studio is a short distance from her ‘hospital home’ and she credits both her artistic practice and social isolation as keeping her alive, engaged and creative.
In the most popular episode of MoMA’s YouTube “In the Studio” series, host Corey D’Augustine, a painter and conservator, demonstrates the ins and outs of creating a composition like those of Yayoi Kusama. It is well worth watching because D’Augustine conjures the painting in front of us giving a real and magical sense of how Kusama’s works are made and what kind of effort goes into them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZBC3nmvJb8&feature=emb_title