MAGAZINE: City College artists navigate the pandemic
City College artists continue to create during the pandemic
At Joshua Tree National Park, Spencer Fields held his own art installation during Thanksgiving weekend in 2020, using balloons that are spray painted and fishing wire to make it seem that the balloons are floating. Fields photo
June 4, 2021
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Due to COVID-19, artists all over the world have had to navigate creating, showing and selling their art to the public in new ways.
San Diego City College is home to incredible artists of all kinds — performers, painters, ceramicists, sculptors, multimedia artists and everything in between.
“I think it was a struggle to make art in the beginning,” said City College art professor Terri Hughes-Oelrich. “If I had time, I should be making masks for people.”
A lot of Hughes-Oelrich’s projects have been pushed back a year, including The Sugar Museum. She has since been creating smaller pieces where she documents plastic lid and cap in use in 2021.
With the topic of Black Lives Matter and the protests that have happened in response to the murder of George Floyd, Hughes-Oelrich said it has ignited a creative spark.
“I got totally inspired to work on a project for our AH garage, which is the Social Justice Mural Garage,” Hughes-Oelrich said.
She has since written a proposal and a grant in hopes of making a mural she is envisioning a reality.
Hughes-Oelrich noticed that since classes have been online, students have been less motivated when it comes to their art.
“In that environment when everybody is working and talking, and the whole community, I think it’s so important,” Hughes-Oelrich said.
Spencer Fields, a Studio Arts major at City College has managed to stay motivated during the pandemic.
“For me, it’s kinda a blessing, the timing of the pandemic, I made all of these radical changes,” Fields said. “I spend all this time and energy with my art.”
His work is an expression of who he is and what goes on in his life.
Fields mentioned that getting over the first initial fear of showing his art was helped by the professors here at City College.
He noticed that more people are buying art. “Maybe because we are all inside and people want something cool on their walls to look at,” Fields said.
For showcases of his art, visit his Instagram, @spncr.flds.
