You've probably noticed that our group has gone from the most active figure drawing group in New York to very little activity at all. A couple of factors have gone into this. A big one is scarcity of affordable venues to hold classes and events. The rehearsal studios we used to use are all being swallowed up by real estate developers and converted into housing or some other kinds of offices, or they've been forced to raise their rate to make them impractical. I've always tried to keep the cost of these events as low as possible, and as accessible as possible. Another element is just my schedule not allowing me the time to organizing regular sessions, and last, but by no means least, COVID!
Sure it's been a thorn in everyone's side, but it seems safest to play on the side of caution. Right now we've been through the big, bad Delta variant and are grappling with the voracious Omicron variant. The more people are able to interact with each other, the more potential for mutations and variants to appear, so it stands to reason indoor events are best avoided. Consider that the Spanish Influenza of the last century actually persisted for about 5 years. After the deadly first wave, and the deadlier second wave, there were still occasional smaller outbreaks. I imagine COVID will be much the same. We were able to begin to reopen a lot of things this past summer, but it looks like we may have a mini shutdown for a while this winter for Omicron. Hopefully things will be back to normaler this spring.
In the meantime, be careful and be safe!
You can follow us on our Meetup group: https://www.meetup.com/FigureSketching-NYC/
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrawMania
