Art, Artists & Pandemic with Cassandra Jones

Cassandra Jones is an Ojai artist with a list of exhibits and permanent collections that would go on for days. Most proximately, she is the first artist-in-residence at Taft Gardens, the acclaimed westside Mediterranean flora showcase. She is also the wife of Wilco keyboardist Mikael Jurgensen and a mother, a task made harder by quarantine confinement. We cover a lot of ground in our talk - the dawn of modern design, including the Bauhaus movement, that emerged from the pandemic of 1918 and its lessons for today, working and creating during the current pandemic, the Renaissance, Greece and Los Angeles. Mostly we discuss our growing anticipation for what comes next - the feeling that Ojai is about to burst into bloom after this hard year. Among our references: Derek DelGuadio's amazing show on Hulu, "In & Of Itself," with its incredible illusions, sleight-of-hand and storytelling that transcends description; Boccacio's "Decameron," Vasari's "Lives of the Saints," and Andrew Bird. You can check out Cassandra's work at cassandracjones.com.