LP: How has your daily routine changed?

JF: For better or worse, my daily routine has always been marked by a generous dose of anxiety, introversion, and television habits of tasteless origins. Who knew that a trip to the grocery store could be the scariest part of anyone’s day? If I wasn’t so worried about my friends, family, and loved ones, I could find immense satisfaction in a life of studio, dog walks, and re-runs of Beverly Hills 90210. My Whippet, Kevin, certainly has no complaints right now.

LP: Many artists work in solitude ordinarily. How has isolation or social distancing affected you in these times?

JF: Even though I find comfort in working alone in the studio, I think this moment poses an important question about the role of objects, engagement, and embodiment in the transmission of art practices. Despite the general trend to create more online content right now (and certainly I’m contributing to this enterprise), I’m finding limits and fatigue in all the virtual meetings and social media. I’m reminded of how much the sociality of physicality means to my practice: to create more witnesses to objects and people in space.

LP: If there is any silver lining, what is it?

JF: My idealist self hopes that there might be a way to see this time as a recalibration of our dreams, goals, and desires outside of the mechanisms of work/capitalism: to better understand how we define ourselves outside and inside a community. If nothing else, I think I’m becoming a much better home cook.

LP: Make up your own question and answer it.

JF: Is this lifetime exceptionally turbulent or are all lifetimes equally turbulent? I’ve posed the question to my 90 year old grandmother, and she changed the topic to beading.