Portal Series
It can conjure the living
Make apparitions appear
It’s a portal to anywhere
But wherever you go, you are here
04/16/20
by Chelsea Ross
The Portal Series (March-April 2020) projects people and places onto the altar of virtual time-space and spiritual travel. In the tradition of altars as spaces of sacred offerings honoring our connection and communication with dimensions beyond our physical plane, the Portal Series places the screen in the center of the altar. Through it, we invite apparitions into our quarantine-time spaces, connecting us to people and places beyond the confines of our material realities.
Madison Flowers on her patio - Diversey Bay, CA
Becky Levi in her home - Chicago, IL
Saye Wuo on his rooftop with a joint - Los Angeles, CA
Justin Mitchell on his stoop with flowers - Chicago, CA
Alli Diaz in her bath with Tangerine - Chicago, IL
Noël Morical in her bedroom - Chicago, IL
Zach London in his bedroom with a cracker - Philadelphia, PA
Syren Syrup in her bathroom - Chicago, IL
Cy Earl in their apartment - Chicago, IL
Alyssa Martinez & Asher Martinez Ticus in our dining room-turned-studio - Chicago IL
Gaby Martinez in her apartment with Beckett the cat - Chicago, IL
Alex Martinez in her home - Cleveland, OH
Quarantine Questions
How are you getting through this? Where are you finding joy?
I am getting through this time with a delicate dance between surrender and control. That’s cliché, but it’s true. I’m surrendering to the circumstances that are out of our control, and focusing on everything over which I do have power: my body, my thoughts, the food I eat, where I put my attention, my immediate physical space, daily discipline, and routine.
On the good days, that looks like going through movement, meditation practices, and the tasks I set out for myself with clarity and ease. Finding a rhythm. Creating stillness. Feeling light.
(Here are livestream yoga classes with some of my favorite teachers including Adam Grossi and Christina Corso.)
On the hard days, when I feel helpless and heavy, I try to change my surroundings and headspace. Go for a run, walk my dogs, read a book, listen to music, write, talk to a friend.
Or I don’t. I eat shit food, spend too much time on my phone, don’t shower, get drunk, feel angry. Fuck it.
I believe we are allowed some despair and bad behavior.
I still haven’t reorganized my office.
I am still having trouble falling asleep.
But I have made sure there are always fresh flowers on my kitchen table.
I have been thinking about earth-based rituals that we cultivated long before the capitalist work week, in order to keep us attuned to natural cycles, rhythms, and the passing of time. I have instilled some into my routines. My favorite has been a Friday night shabbat-ish dinner. We (my partner and our housemates) get properly dressed, light candles, share a nice meal, reflect on the week passed, and set intentions for the days to come.
I am now tracking weeks and months by the moon and my own menstrual cycles: we are in the second waning cycle of the moon, and I am in my second menstrual cycle since we entered into quarantine.
I am bearing witness to spring’s slow triumph over winter. (It is freezing and snowing in mid-April, but the grass is green and the feral lilies in my front yard have pushed their way up through the cold ground).
I have been thinking about this poem by Ada Limón, from her book The Carrying:
INSTRUCTIONS ON NOT GIVING UP
More than the fuschia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist, I’ll take it all.
Even if we have the tenacity of trees, there is only so much each of us can take. We are communal creatures. We need touch and connection. The zoom chats and live streams are keeping me going, but all the screen time makes me feel depleted. I long to hug my friends, share space, and dance in big sweaty groups again.
Chelsea Ross (www.chelseaross.net) is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in Chicago. She explores ideas and practices of collaboration, identity, sexuality, power, and all forms of liberation through photography, writing, curation, and movement. She holds a Master of Art in Design Criticism from the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. While her practice is informed by architecture and design thinking, she works decidedly in the realm of art, because of its elasticity and more direct connection to contemporary culture. Her photographic work and writing have been exhibited and published in Chicago and nationally. She prefers curves over corners, and spends significant time alone in the desert, talking to as few people as possible.
Chelsea Ross worked on this piece with Mairead Case, the Quarantine Times Thursday editor. Each week, Mairead selects a Chicago artist to share a commissioned creative response to the pandemic.
