Jewerly in the time of coronavirus - Ana Margarida Carvalho (Portugal)

As Corona Virus spread through the world, I was teaching at Ar.Co’s Jewelry Department, I was part of two group exhibitions (“Gogoísme” with Galeria Reverso and “Herbaria, -ae” with Galleria Carlo Lucidi). Life went on, so I delivered wedding rings to a young couple planning to marry in September, and a wedding anniversary ring, for a couple celebrating their years together.

I planned to travel to Bucharest for the Romanian Jewelry Week, but unfortunately as it was postponed. So I joined all the traveler hopefuls that were trying to get refunds or ticket rebooking done. Happily, after a couple of tries, I managed to get my ticket rebooked to September and I hope to be there for the Romanian Jewelry Week.

Then Portugal closed everything but essential businesses and I had to quickly reorganize my life. In Ar.Co’s Jewelry Department we managed to keep classes working without interruption. Online, of course!

With the galleries I work with closed, my jewels went on living online. “Gogoísme” in Galeria Reverso was still on when the gallery had to close with pieces waiting for its reopening. In Italy, one of the most Covid affected countries in the world, the newly opened Galleria Carlo Lucidi, kept promoting all its artists.

Eleni Marneri Galerie posted pictures of their artists and created the #SupportCreativity #SupportArtJewelry iniciative with 10% of its sales going to EODY.

Sitting at home, I decided to expand the “Play in Case of Emergency” work started for the Gogoísme exhibition.

“Play in Case of Emergency”, that seams a title suited for this times, was not indeed done that way. Corona virus was barely in the news when I started this project.

When I look around, I find people don’t value enough play time and many think that one has to be very serious when working. This project came as challenge, but also gave me the opportunity to explore this subject. Thankfully I have access to my studio. I spent the first weeks drawing a then I was ready to go back to the bench. The pieces slowly came to life, with a lot of sawing, filing, sanding and gluing, but I think my neighbors were happy I wasn’t forging now that we were confined.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t be indifferent to what was going on in the world, so I joined two fundraiser initiatives, “Crown Jewels Funding Italy” and “Jewelry in Auction”. I also joined “SOS.ART.PT” a group which aims to promote artists, but also to help them.

As I promoted my work online, I came across “Renova x Inês Nunes”. With confinement came toilet paper hoarding news. Inês took the pun of the national toilet paper brand in her project for the UMBIGO magazine. Renova means renew in Portuguese. She challenged everyone to creatively recycle their toilet paper tubes. In my participation, I did “Ready”, a series of characters waiting for Summer, as I I remembered my childhood finger puppets.

In this more than ever online world, I was also invited by Atelier Escola in São Paulo (Brasil) to be part of a talk about my work. The talk in Portuguese can be seen in my YouTube channel. Like many these days, I attended work, family and friends online meetings, namely the AJF weekly talk, and I checked the Klimt02 site (completely open for the time being!).

I also cooked quite a bit. I made bread, fresh pasta, but also some more traditional Portuguese dishes that I longed for. The result of all this cooking was comforting and I got some new office supplies to my atelier.

Portugal ended the Emergency State on May 2nd and with it, its mandatory confinement. The country is slowly opening, but I still keep myself home as much as possible, never leaving the house without a mask and gloves.

The confinement hasn’t been difficult for me, but it would nice to get together offline with friends and family at least. Some of them are even in the front lines of this pandemic.

While I wait for that to happen, I keep developing my work, teaching and I joined the “Hand Metal Project”. This initiative aim is to thank those that have been taking care of the Covid patients. Every jeweler that joins this project will make at least one pre-defined hand medal to give to those who have been working so hard to keep us safe.

I continue to promote and expand “In Paradisum”, “In Paradisum II” and “Play in Case of Emergency” collections, accept new challenges and make plans to interact in person with others soon.