Creating in Pandemic Times

I visited the artist in his studio to ask him about current events and their effect on him, to hear his take and connection to the world.

Sivan: how has the spreading of the virus affected your studio practice?

Gadi: I’ll tell you something, I have a much slower working brain. My world view is slow. Humans often have a strong desire to leap forward, but we can’t. There’s no free lunch! Nature will stop us. We didn’t respect nature and now we’re paying for it. Humans are fascinating creatures. Often we have unending desires and begin to chase our own tails.

For Gadi in Mishmar David, life is not so different under the conditions of the pandemic. Surrounded by countryside, the artist continues working in his studio daily. For him, a slow pace to life is a key to living, to connecting to the universe. Whereas some artists paint a painting a day, for Gadi the long, attention-filled process of sculpting in stone sets his pace. To match it, he lives in nature, and has no stressful aspirations to race toward the future. His goals instead are slow, meticulous, and taken one day at a time.