Lydia Hopmann
Quarantine and being furloughed has actually allowed me the time to rediscover my creativity. Which I always said I didn’t have time for when I was working full-time, but in reality, you know, I didn’t make time. I prioritized different things. I look back at 3 plus years that I’ve [had this full-time job] and how I slowly lost myself. The job is what it is and it's not a creative position that I’m in. I really lost sight and touch with my creativity.
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When you stop producing you kind of feel like you’re no longer an artist, you’re no longer a designer, you’re no longer a creative. And that’s not true.
It’s been nice - being forced to let go of all of this stress and all of this micro-management of myself. And allow myself time to breathe and detox and figure out what I want to do with my creativity now.
At the moment that has turned into a food exchange, #thefoodexchange. It was born out of the sense of, “I have all this time and I’m going to bake! YAY! But I don’t want to eat it all myself. I have to give it to people.” It really morphed into this thing where it was about bringing joy to other people in this time that’s really uncertain. People are less connected physically with each other. I know it’s been hard for me to keep up with friends, even digitally. So this has given me a reason to reach out to people to see how they’re doing. Even if I’m only seeing them for two to three minutes when I drop off or when they pick up [the baked goods]. Just sharing that little bit of camaraderie is amazing.
I know it helped me, because when I was furloughed I went into this depressive anxiety state. I really closed myself off. It was probably part of the detox process honestly. And coming out of it and being like, “Ok I need to start doing something so I’m no longer in a spiral downward.” By uplifting myself I was also uplifting others or vice-versa.