Interview by Dr. Juilee Decker and Alicia Evans, educator and Fiber Artist

Alicia Evans, Oral History, 2020/10/01

Alicia Evans describes her busy life before COVID. She was a professor at City University New York as well as a fiber artist and medical actor. She describes how her work changed due to COVID, and how virtual learning has changed the way things are taught. She shares her art and stories about how she is impacting lives through her work and art.

This interview was recorded by Juilee Decker and Joysetta Pearse with Alicia Evans on October 1, 2020 at 5:30 pm ET and lasted approximately 56 minutes. It was conducted over Zoom. A transcript is attached, along with multiple images associated with the interview, provided by Evans. It is part of the LongIslandCommunity series, an initiative of COVID-19 archive (Juilee Decker) and the African American Museum of Nassau County (Joysetta Pearse)."

October 1, 2020

Juilee Decker

Joysetta Pearse

Alicia Evans

Juilee Decker

LongIslandCommunity

African American Museum of Nassau County

oral history

photos

English Art & Design

English Education--Universities

English Healthcare

English Labor

English Community & Community Organizations

English Online Learning

Long Island

New York

fabric

crochet

doctor

training

neighborhood

virtual

Black Voices

Pandemic Pets

12/09/2020

12/09/2020

12/18/2020

07/03/2021

11/05/2023

10/01/2020

Juilee Decker

Alicia Evans

Long Island, NY

56 minutes

Interview by Juilee Decker and Joysetta Pearse with Alicia Evans Recorded October 1, 2020
5:30 pm ET
Conducted over Zoom. The interview is 56 minutes.


286
00:32:57.870 --> 00:32:59.040
Juilee Decker: Alicia, are you there?

287
00:33:05.160 --> 00:33:06.390
Alicia Evans: Yes, I am. Just a minute.

288
00:33:06.630 --> 00:33:10.200
Juilee Decker: How are you, I'm doing well. Thank you. How are you doing,

289
00:33:10.440 --> 00:33:14.610
Alicia Evans: I am doing good. Let me just find a spot to sit down.

290
00:33:14.820 --> 00:33:18.960
Alicia Evans: That sounds great. Yes, yes, yes, that was a profound story.

291
00:33:19.350 --> 00:33:19.950
Juilee Decker: I agree.

292
00:33:19.980 --> 00:33:21.300
Alicia Evans: Wow.

293
00:33:21.420 --> 00:33:24.900
Juilee Decker: I know I know everyone's stories for Kobe.

294
00:33:25.140 --> 00:33:25.680
Juilee Decker: I found

295
00:33:25.860 --> 00:33:30.300
Juilee Decker: Let me, let me click something I have to turn have to get a different notebook. Hold on one second. So you

296

00:33:30.330 --> 00:33:32.730
Alicia Evans: Can show a good. Yeah, give me a chance to sit down.

297
00:33:32.910 --> 00:33:33.480
Juilee Decker: Yes, that's

298
00:33:34.380 --> 00:33:34.860
Right.

299
00:33:36.690 --> 00:33:37.740
Alicia Evans: That's my photo.

300
00:33:39.510 --> 00:33:39.930
Alicia Evans: Great.

301
00:34:26.790 --> 00:34:27.900
Juilee Decker: Okay, now we're back together.

302
00:34:30.660 --> 00:34:31.800
Juilee Decker: A little intermission. Right.

303
00:34:32.370 --> 00:34:34.800
Alicia Evans: Yes. Right, right. Good to see you again.

304
00:34:35.070 --> 00:34:37.500
Alicia Evans: And thank you for continuing to do the work.

305
00:34:37.740 --> 00:34:40.710
Juilee Decker: Oh my gosh, I'm so grateful. I tell Joyce Seta

306
00:34:41.970 --> 00:34:46.470
Juilee Decker: Anyone that she knows who's an fo day, a friend of joy Seta is a friend of mine.

307
00:34:47.850 --> 00:35:03.450
Juilee Decker: I'm so blessed to know her, and to have her share help people share their stories. Last week we talked to some kids from piece. It was great. I mean, there were, I forget how many kids there were six or nine kids, I think, was nine kids.

308
00:35:03.690 --> 00:35:04.560
Alicia Evans: Wow.

309
00:35:04.620 --> 00:35:07.740
Juilee Decker: You were telling their stories about kind of what they've been doing

310
00:35:07.920 --> 00:35:16.170
Juilee Decker: To spend. Yes, so it's it's been it's been really, really need to talk to several other people. It's been great. So, and I appreciate you making time because I know

311
00:35:16.230 --> 00:35:16.860
Juilee Decker: Yeah.

312
00:35:17.700 --> 00:35:22.290
Alicia Evans: How long is your interviewing process. How many do you close it down.

313
00:35:22.650 --> 00:35:23.610
Alicia Evans: After a while,

314
00:35:23.970 --> 00:35:36.660
Juilee Decker: So I'm doing it, just until I mean through fall. We'll see how it however long and the way Joyce that and I worked it out is just on Thursday nights. People can

315
00:35:37.830 --> 00:35:40.050
Juilee Decker: Just like whoever she's organized with

316
00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:52.920
Juilee Decker: Right. They, they can call in, or they can video in and then I record it and then I go back and I'm trying to like put them into the segments. So, like, in other words, so like Marcellus a segment.

317
00:35:53.430 --> 00:36:00.600
Juilee Decker: Or segment. And so we can do it however, like if people want to call in and if there's more people

318
00:36:01.380 --> 00:36:05.580
Juilee Decker: In one night I can set up another time. It was just, we were making, like, one, one.

319
00:36:05.730 --> 00:36:06.210
Alicia Evans: Line.

320
00:36:06.300 --> 00:36:10.980
Juilee Decker: Oh, yeah. So pretty much through the fall, but but we can see, I mean,

321
00:36:12.210 --> 00:36:14.550
Alicia Evans: I'm going to make sure I spread the word after I get off the

322
00:36:14.550 --> 00:36:17.880
Alicia Evans: Phone because there's an organization which is called Black Long Island.

323
00:36:18.330 --> 00:36:18.840
Alicia Evans: Okay, and

324
00:36:18.900 --> 00:36:21.510
Alicia Evans: I'll make sure I take the information you sent me before.

325
00:36:21.630 --> 00:36:27.480
Alicia Evans: And I'll post it up and let them know to connect with joy set up as I know she's organizing this.

326
00:36:27.480 --> 00:36:28.320
Juilee Decker: That's perfect. So

327
00:36:28.350 --> 00:36:28.920
Alicia Evans: You great

328
00:36:29.250 --> 00:36:30.870
Juilee Decker: Yeah, and and we've been doing

329
00:36:31.020 --> 00:36:34.260
Juilee Decker: With the kiddos here i did i do we set it.

330
00:36:34.470 --> 00:36:34.890
Alicia Evans: So,

331
00:36:35.190 --> 00:36:46.560
Juilee Decker: We're talking about process. And so, like with the kiddos last week they. Some of them I did the I still had the video on but I only recorded the audio portion, since there are youngsters

332
00:36:46.590 --> 00:37:00.060
Juilee Decker: And yes, okay. And they weren't like I wasn't going to have an image of them or anything. So yeah, people can call in, they can just Joey said is the mastermind behind all this support. I mean, I'm the support person. That's what I am.

333
00:37:01.560 --> 00:37:02.700
Joysetta Pearse: That listen to that.

334
00:37:06.450 --> 00:37:12.300
Juilee Decker: Alicia. So also, there's the six questions. So I'll start with question one, and then we can kind of go from there. Does that

335
00:37:12.330 --> 00:37:14.610
Alicia Evans: Okay, perfect, perfect.

336
00:37:15.270 --> 00:37:26.010
Juilee Decker: Okay. So question one is to i can i can see your name, I think, but please state your name and then any other biographical information you want to share

337
00:37:26.670 --> 00:37:35.850
Alicia Evans: My name is Alicia Evans al I CIA Evans and I live here in Roosevelt Long Island.

338
00:37:38.550 --> 00:37:41.310
Alicia Evans: I am over 45

339
00:37:43.650 --> 00:37:44.280
Alicia Evans: Female

340
00:37:47.490 --> 00:37:52.080
Alicia Evans: Okay. And I've always lived on. Well, I've lived on Long Island. Originally I was from Brooklyn.

341
00:37:53.160 --> 00:37:56.010
Alicia Evans: Moved to long Alan in 1976

342
00:37:57.870 --> 00:38:08.010
Juilee Decker: Awesome. Thank you. Question to so before COVID, what would you say an average day was like for you. And then what is it like now.

343
00:38:08.610 --> 00:38:11.820
Alicia Evans: Okay, so, as Joe said, Oh, probably knows

344
00:38:11.910 --> 00:38:13.980
Alicia Evans: I am just active and all over the place.

345
00:38:14.160 --> 00:38:14.580
Joysetta Pearse: Yeah.

346
00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:29.100
Alicia Evans: I've got a background in marketing and at the time when COVID said in I've been a teacher at the City University of New York or tuning and I've been teaching there for about 13 years

347
00:38:30.630 --> 00:38:44.370
Alicia Evans: Teaching Social Media Strategies and one of the country's premier or pioneer professors, creating a social media course. And I also teach advanced public relations writing

348
00:38:46.770 --> 00:38:47.910
Alicia Evans: In addition to that,

349
00:38:49.170 --> 00:38:58.680

Alicia Evans: I am also an artist. I am a fiber artists and that is I crochet trees beautiful on wall hangings of trees.

350
00:38:59.430 --> 00:39:00.540
Joysetta Pearse: Can you show me this one.

351
00:39:00.600 --> 00:39:03.660
Juilee Decker: Yeah, seriously. I was just gonna say, can you show us what

352
00:39:05.640 --> 00:39:06.420
Alicia Evans: If you can go to

353
00:39:07.050 --> 00:39:08.010
Alicia Evans: My Instagram.

354
00:39:08.100 --> 00:39:11.160
Alicia Evans: Alicia, Alicia five arts. Okay.

355
00:39:11.880 --> 00:39:13.410
Alicia Evans: I'm stuff will be there.

356
00:39:15.270 --> 00:39:18.030
Alicia Evans: And I can you know afterwards, I can send you some backup stuff here.

357
00:39:18.090 --> 00:39:18.480
Alicia Evans: Because

358
00:39:18.870 --> 00:39:21.780
Alicia Evans: One of the stories I want to share include some of my work.

359
00:39:22.230 --> 00:39:28.170
Alicia Evans: And then the last thing I do, because I'll give you the before as an after the last thing I do is, I'm a medical actress.

360
00:39:29.040 --> 00:39:48.810
Alicia Evans: And what that means is that I work with NYU and also

Cornell Medical Center. I come in and I trained doctors emergency room doctors, how to be more empathetic to families that have a patient or family member that's about to die.

361
00:39:51.330 --> 00:39:58.710
Alicia Evans: Funny part I found the job. It came to me through the way of Craigslist. Do not let do not people

362
00:39:59.070 --> 00:39:59.970
Craigslist.

363
00:40:02.070 --> 00:40:02.310
Alicia Evans: SOUND

364
00:40:02.430 --> 00:40:03.960
Alicia Evans: professional medical apparatus.

365
00:40:04.320 --> 00:40:10.770
Juilee Decker: That's, that's incredible. And to be a professional medical actors right now. During COVID or just like to

366
00:40:11.340 --> 00:40:14.100
Alicia Evans: Tell you the before and the actors on only thing

367
00:40:14.700 --> 00:40:19.590
Juilee Decker: Oh yeah. Okay, so, yeah. So, um, so talk about your average day before, and now

368
00:40:19.800 --> 00:40:28.530
Alicia Evans: So the average day, twice a week, I would travel from Long Island and go into Manhattan to teach my classes on Tuesday and Thursdays.

369
00:40:29.730 --> 00:40:35.310
Alicia Evans: On on Monday and Wednesdays, I would be preparing for my classes.

370
00:40:36.480 --> 00:40:40.800
Alicia Evans: And then other than that in the evening hours, I'd be crocheting

371
00:40:41.880 --> 00:40:52.830
Alicia Evans: And on sometimes on my days off, I would be actually doing the, the medical training and what that involves is is I'm giving a particular scenario.

372
00:40:54.750 --> 00:41:04.230
Alicia Evans: Particular scenario is, if a parent as if a relative is in hospital. And I have to take that scenario into an actual doctors and we actually

373
00:41:04.680 --> 00:41:16.320
Alicia Evans: Practice a do actual scenarios to see, you know, to help them to be more empathetic and most of my training was done or the actual scenarios was done in Manhattan.

374
00:41:16.980 --> 00:41:23.970
Alicia Evans: But right before calls it, I was traveling around the United States doing this. So I had been to

375
00:41:24.480 --> 00:41:38.640
Alicia Evans: Houston, Delaware, Philadelphia, I was all over doing this and having a great time and knowing that I was making a difference in the lives of families and also the lives of doctors

376
00:41:38.970 --> 00:41:43.800
Alicia Evans: Nationwide, I was absolutely having a good time and it did not interrupt.

377
00:41:44.040 --> 00:41:54.330
Alicia Evans: Me teaching at school. It always worked at the scheduling would be, oh that's today I'm off or. That's the day I can leave right after class and just get on a plane or get on a train and go around.

378
00:41:55.170 --> 00:41:58.830
Alicia Evans: So it was a pretty pretty busy life and for leisure.

379
00:41:59.220 --> 00:42:17.010
Alicia Evans: I you can find me on a Friday night or Saturday night. I'm out singing at something, then you doing karaoke or doing jazz or

hanging out with them. Joy said if they were having an event and singing at her event. They call us DOM. And one day, yes, yes, yes.

380
00:42:18.870 --> 00:42:23.130
Alicia Evans: Oh, it was getting ready for my life was really, really full

381
00:42:26.280 --> 00:42:27.120
Juilee Decker: And now.

382
00:42:29.490 --> 00:42:41.700
Alicia Evans: Okay. So right after Kovac came in, I had to start teaching online remotely. Um, I'm not going to lie to you, and I'm sure there are thousands of professors around the nation saying it's hell.

383
00:42:42.510 --> 00:42:53.700
Alicia Evans: Why is it hell you have additional work you're learning new technology you're learning how to communicate differently now what what helped me

384
00:42:54.450 --> 00:43:04.530
Alicia Evans: Is that my students knew me with small family at City College and they were going through these changes, while I'm going through my changes, but we found a way to work.

385
00:43:05.250 --> 00:43:18.060
Alicia Evans: One of the things that I did for my class because these students were going through changes, you know, some of them had family members that were ill. Some had family members that were dying. And one of the things I created I

386
00:43:18.540 --> 00:43:26.010
Alicia Evans: Created I had was a caricature of one of my pieces I can actually get that for you.

387
00:43:26.340 --> 00:43:27.720
Alicia Evans: Oh, yes.

388
00:43:27.900 --> 00:43:34.140
Alicia Evans: Yes. Oh, and when you said, Show. I'm thinking of

digitally showing I'm virtual okay. Hold on one sec. Just set up chat.

389
00:43:37.590 --> 00:43:43.050
Juilee Decker: Oh my gosh choice Seta you are you captured her perfectly

390
00:43:44.520 --> 00:43:45.180
Juilee Decker: She said,

391
00:43:46.710 --> 00:43:47.400
Juilee Decker: Oh my gosh.

392
00:43:48.600 --> 00:43:55.830
Juilee Decker: Amazing. She wouldn't. I can just imagine her as the perfect person to do the work that she was talking about.

393
00:43:56.400 --> 00:43:56.700
With that

394
00:43:59.040 --> 00:44:02.340
Joysetta Pearse: One reminder to tell you that story about that the old doctor. Okay.

395
00:44:02.700 --> 00:44:05.430
Juilee Decker: Oh, that's beautiful. Oh my goodness.

396
00:44:06.090 --> 00:44:11.400
Juilee Decker: See that, yes, yes. Oh, oh my gosh, that's

397
00:44:11.460 --> 00:44:12.420
Juilee Decker: All right. Oh.

398
00:44:12.750 --> 00:44:14.070
Juilee Decker: Yeah, right. So,

399
00:44:14.400 --> 00:44:18.000
Alicia Evans: Aside from trees I do abstract people 400

00:44:18.540 --> 00:44:22.290
Alicia Evans: Yeah, right. And Nick and this little girl here. I want you to see the red ball.

401
00:44:22.590 --> 00:44:22.920
Yeah.

402
00:44:27.150 --> 00:44:40.650
Alicia Evans: All love me tender and I was just finishing up love me tender when when call that started. So what would happen, you know, to try to bring some relief into the classes, I would have loved me tender sit with me.

403
00:44:41.070 --> 00:44:41.610
Alicia Evans: When I was

404
00:44:41.880 --> 00:44:46.560
Alicia Evans: In my classes. So we'd start class and love me tender would be sitting right next to me.

405
00:44:47.250 --> 00:44:47.910
Juilee Decker: Oh man, I'm like,

406
00:44:48.210 --> 00:45:01.980
Alicia Evans: Everybody. This is love me tender. She's just a little girl, there was one instance where one guy said, You know, I really like love me tender. I'm gonna take her home. I'm like, she's under 10

407
00:45:03.030 --> 00:45:03.480
Juilee Decker: Oh my

408
00:45:04.680 --> 00:45:18.060
Alicia Evans: Tender what comic relief while I'm teaching you know a real serious course Social Media Strategies, how to make it in the world content and all that good kind of stuff but love me tender would sit there. So there was one time when

409
00:45:18.870 --> 00:45:32.610
Alicia Evans: I couldn't teach from home, they were doing plumbing work or something was going on here. So I went over to my my my father's home and I'm doing classes for them. They're like, yo, wait,

you can't start class with love me tender because she would sit right behind me.

410
00:45:33.960 --> 00:45:36.180
Alicia Evans: Love Me tender is not here today, and they like

411
00:45:37.200 --> 00:45:41.340
Alicia Evans: I said, you really want to know. And they're like, Yeah. I said she's being homeschooled.

412
00:45:47.430 --> 00:45:58.050
Alicia Evans: Let me tell you in my classes, we just had joy. You know, I tried to bring joy because it was such a I'm such a rough, rough situation I'm pulling up some other pieces as we talk

413
00:45:58.500 --> 00:45:59.040
Alicia Evans: But, um,

414
00:45:59.610 --> 00:46:07.620
Alicia Evans: I use that to to to ease, you know, to bring some joy into a very trying situation.

415
00:46:08.730 --> 00:46:15.510
Alicia Evans: You know, there was one class that I had with the young lady announced, she says it was a two hour class a PR writing class.

416
00:46:15.960 --> 00:46:28.770
Alicia Evans: And the young lady announced that her sister had died in the middle class right now I have to use skills. I've never used before, but I do have a skill that everyone has and that is the skill of being human.

417
00:46:29.250 --> 00:46:33.780
Alicia Evans: So I said, I stopped in my head, I'm like, oh my god.

418
00:46:34.950 --> 00:46:44.820
Alicia Evans: But I kept a straight face. I said, you know what we're gonna do. We're going to take a pause for your relative and everyone. We're going to pause for 30 seconds because we're gonna move

419

00:46:47.040 --> 00:46:56.100
Alicia Evans: On we did. Pause And then afterwards, you know, we will have to continue in the lesson and I went back and let her know whatever you need.

420
00:46:56.520 --> 00:47:04.230
Alicia Evans: To make it through. Do you need some more time, you know. Do you need some more coaching, just let me know. And I will tell you.

421
00:47:04.830 --> 00:47:17.940
Alicia Evans: Um, we work together and she had one of the most extraordinary portfolios. That's a final piece that you have to turn in, and I, I, you know, she's out doing her thing now do an excellent and, you know,

422
00:47:18.780 --> 00:47:34.830
Alicia Evans: For us, the professors or any teachers, you know, to find the time and to have the time to be able to help students through this because we needed to become social workers and psychologists, while also trying to preserve our own lives.

423
00:47:35.580 --> 00:47:45.000
Alicia Evans: For me it was a pleasure. And I was able to give back and hold and help folks make it through. So I'm really, really very proud of that. Oh.

424
00:47:45.030 --> 00:47:56.640
Joysetta Pearse: Yeah, Russia, yes. Are you going to tell the story about the old crotchety doctor who came in, who didn't who didn't think that he needed that training.

425
00:47:57.720 --> 00:47:58.230
Alicia Evans: Oh,

426
00:48:01.200 --> 00:48:08.850
Alicia Evans: Okay, so there was this doctor, where am I, I was traveling. I'm not sure what what hospital because after you travel a while all of the hospitals look like right now.

427
00:48:09.480 --> 00:48:16.440
Alicia Evans: I'm in your hospital and this doctor is really and this

is before Kofi and I'll tell you about Africa.

428
00:48:16.860 --> 00:48:22.320
Alicia Evans: So this doctors really upset and many of the doctors in these programs. They're usually

429
00:48:22.650 --> 00:48:38.670
Alicia Evans: Heads of various units, you know, they've been working 2030 years they are senior level. So there's one doctor comes in and he's like, you know, I really I don't understand why got a Judas. This is ridiculous. I'm trying to get beds together and this and that. He's really pissed off.

430
00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:40.920
Alicia Evans: Now, the way I am train

431
00:48:41.550 --> 00:48:55.740
Alicia Evans: Is that if a doctor is not asking me questions about my life and that they're supposed to be trained on it and asked me questions about my life to have a human experience. I'm supposed to

432
00:48:56.160 --> 00:49:09.060
Alicia Evans: Carry on. That is, carry on emotionally. So this doctor. I'm doing a scenario, you know, my 89 year old father is been dead and you know we're trying to make it through and he's about to die. And this man is treating me like a piece of junk.

433
00:49:09.450 --> 00:49:29.550
Alicia Evans: So I'm getting upset and you know cry and and I had been trying to work on crying on cue for the longest time, but I just haven't perfected that well this doctor wasn't getting it. And suddenly the tears are coming out real tears of all and and it's just so

434
00:49:31.680 --> 00:49:39.180
Alicia Evans: Because he's not doing the right thing. Well, when he's, you know, he looks and there's another facilitator in the room.

435
00:49:39.480 --> 00:49:45.270
Alicia Evans: And the film facilitator calls timeout because it's obvious he's not getting it. And now I'm to the point where I'm crying.

436
00:49:45.600 --> 00:49:59.010
Alicia Evans: I'm to have no interaction with anyone. And when I am not in my role, I'm supposed to look down. Well, when I look down the tears are still falling and as I'm looking down. I'm like, oh,

437
00:50:02.550 --> 00:50:08.700
Alicia Evans: No time he looks so the room is silent, we are in a room with other fellow doctors

438
00:50:09.090 --> 00:50:12.540
Alicia Evans: He says shit like that, that I can't take

439
00:50:14.760 --> 00:50:22.110
Alicia Evans: Take a deep breath and we sit and they can you know everyone discuss what's going on.

440
00:50:22.710 --> 00:50:33.630
Alicia Evans: They talk to him about coming at me with a different approach. You know, asked her about her life. See what happens. So now I'm leaning up and unity as a still fall and I'm still in my room.

441
00:50:34.380 --> 00:50:44.550
Alicia Evans: And he says, well, I know your father means something really special to you. Um, what do you, you know. What was some of his hobbies. So now he's asking me real questions.

442
00:50:44.640 --> 00:50:45.180
Alicia Evans: You know,

443
00:50:45.480 --> 00:50:52.200
Alicia Evans: I know I think he likes to play golf. How do you feel about that. Oh, it's really sad when we finish the session.

444
00:50:52.800 --> 00:51:09.690
Alicia Evans: He finally got what it meant to be sympathetic and he realized that it's easier to deliver that type of news to the family and that it's a win win for everyone. And it was just wow so he ended up crying. It ended thing.

445

00:51:09.840 --> 00:51:10.020
That

446
00:51:11.640 --> 00:51:13.050
Alicia Evans: He was real crying.

447
00:51:15.450 --> 00:51:22.680
Alicia Evans: You know, to man crying with his medical stuff on. But I know I'm making changes, and shall shipping lives.

448
00:51:22.950 --> 00:51:31.380
Juilee Decker: Wow. Wow. And just think about like how how that kind of experience. I mean, just how many lives.

449
00:51:31.740 --> 00:51:32.190
And

450
00:51:33.630 --> 00:51:37.260
Juilee Decker: How many we comes into contact differently now because of that.

451
00:51:37.320 --> 00:51:38.520
Alicia Evans: Oh yes and no.

452
00:51:38.550 --> 00:51:43.140
Alicia Evans: Yes, that's amazing. Wow. Do you want to hear the COVID version of this.

453
00:51:43.200 --> 00:51:44.340
Juilee Decker: Sure, sure. Well,

454
00:51:44.700 --> 00:51:45.120
So,

455
00:51:46.140 --> 00:51:49.620
Alicia Evans: Wait a minute, let me put this on here. Second, use my hands to talk. Oh.

456
00:51:51.090 --> 00:52:05.250

Alicia Evans: Come on, stay on stay up. All right, so, um, I had just gotten off of this national tour, a week before Colin I had just come my last trip was to Minneapolis. As a matter of fact, Minneapolis.

457
00:52:06.360 --> 00:52:12.990
Alicia Evans: I get back in and I'm thinking, Oh man, all that extra money is gone out of the win. And now I'm just teaching online.

458
00:52:13.380 --> 00:52:25.770
Alicia Evans: And then I get a call again from I get a call from Cornell Cornell Medical School. And they said, Listen, we want you to come back and do the same thing. And I'm like, Well, I'm not coming back to Manhattan, I'm I don't want to travel Colby

459
00:52:26.190 --> 00:52:38.880
Alicia Evans: And she said, well, we're going to do it online. I said online. So she says yes, we're going to do remote trainings online and the first group of people, you're going to be training either medical students

460
00:52:39.240 --> 00:52:48.120
Alicia Evans: Remember when we had that big conversation and MIT, a number of medical students volunteered to work in hospitals, so he was brutal

461
00:52:48.870 --> 00:53:04.200
Alicia Evans: I think they were still medical students. I think they were finishing up last courses and they were going in. So suddenly I'm going from, you know, 6070 yo doctors to young kids, kids who are of the age of my actual students

462
00:53:04.650 --> 00:53:13.980
Alicia Evans: They're nervous, they're petrified and they have to go through these scenarios and the scenarios for them involved, being able to

463
00:53:14.310 --> 00:53:32.580
Alicia Evans: Deliver the COVID news to families and to deliver the news that the patient may not make it so you know I am in the midst of this. And I'm like, oh my goodness and talk on top of the midst of this these families cannot see their loved ones that are about to pass.

464
00:53:32.790 --> 00:53:41.550
Alicia Evans: May be one can go in. But I think when we initially started. No one could go in and so I'm looking at these young people.

465
00:53:41.940 --> 00:53:53.910
Alicia Evans: And this is going to be the first thing that they do. Like, I think one young lady wanted to be a pediatrician. Another one is you know something not related to COVID. But how do you prep over

466
00:53:54.690 --> 00:54:04.110
Alicia Evans: But we would go through it and what was so fantastic is that after we went through the trainings and the different scenarios they did say I feel more comfortable.

467
00:54:05.460 --> 00:54:19.230
Alicia Evans: You know with them. That would be pauses with it would stop in the middle of a single would like to. I'm not sure what I should do. I'd rather have them do that then with me or with the other facilitators then to do that in the hospital.

468
00:54:19.530 --> 00:54:32.730
Alicia Evans: And so I know I've impacted lives there, and went through a lot of training with them until June and then we took a pause, but we're about to pick back up and many of the things I'm picking back up on on will be

469
00:54:33.240 --> 00:54:47.580
Alicia Evans: It's all virtual now everything is virtual and more conversations with families and actual, you know, going to see your own doctor. It is virtual it's a different world now a very different world. Yeah.

470
00:54:47.610 --> 00:54:55.560
Juilee Decker: Wow, that's incredible. And just to think about how they knew Cornell knew like they needed you to do this because

471
00:54:56.220 --> 00:54:57.420
Juilee Decker: Yes, they

472
00:54:58.440 --> 00:54:58.950
Alicia Evans: Look like

473
00:54:59.160 --> 00:55:01.140
Juilee Decker: Somebody helped them to do it right.

474
00:55:01.200 --> 00:55:03.210
Juilee Decker: And that's so that's incredible.

475
00:55:03.270 --> 00:55:05.310
Juilee Decker: Oh my god. Absolutely. Um,

476
00:55:05.790 --> 00:55:06.090
Alicia Evans: And I

477
00:55:06.150 --> 00:55:18.870
Alicia Evans: Think right now, I'd be, you know, especially when we started, I would have been afraid to go into a hospital where, as you know, just early, you know, February I was in everybody's hospital.

478
00:55:20.130 --> 00:55:27.240
Alicia Evans: Had no problem. Yeah, but now things, things have truly, truly changed. Yeah, yeah, totally change.

479
00:55:28.950 --> 00:55:34.980
Juilee Decker: I appreciated your story about that student. By the way, the student in your class I teach at our it and

480
00:55:35.250 --> 00:55:35.730
Alicia Evans: You know,

481
00:55:35.940 --> 00:55:45.810
Juilee Decker: There was, there was, I won't go into the details, but there was an instance where a student revealed too much information in class, and it's not too much for

482
00:55:47.070 --> 00:55:50.730
Juilee Decker: That specific moment and I appreciate the way you handled that.

483
00:55:50.760 --> 00:55:53.250

Alicia Evans: That was, this was one. There was another one I happy one

484
00:55:53.610 --> 00:56:04.200
Alicia Evans: The young lady was trying to 21 so she tells me a week before we had a private conference, just like you know next week. I turned 21 and, you know, I'm like, Yeah, okay, you know,

485
00:56:04.650 --> 00:56:14.520
Alicia Evans: Real cool but after we finished up. I'm like, what is that like you waited on your left to turn 21 and you can't go out, you cannot afford it. What are we going to do with this.

486
00:56:14.880 --> 00:56:21.840
Alicia Evans: So the next week comes I forgot about a burger, but there was going to be the same damn teaching, but I had a lot of my mind. So

487
00:56:22.470 --> 00:56:32.760
Alicia Evans: We're in the class, doing my thing. And it's at the end of class nearing the end of the class, but I still have some stuff to go through and one kid raises his hand or does the zoom like you know that stupid him.

488
00:56:33.060 --> 00:56:39.000
Alicia Evans: And I said, Yes, yes. JOHN. Did you know today is Paul his birthday. I'm like, I want to go up.

489
00:56:41.370 --> 00:56:41.940
Alicia Evans: When I

490
00:56:42.930 --> 00:56:43.380
Juilee Decker: OK.

491
00:56:43.740 --> 00:56:51.450
Alicia Evans: I said we will acknowledge Paul's birthday but we're going to get through the last piece. So we make it through the last piece of what we had there. I'm like, Okay, everybody.

492
00:56:51.690 --> 00:57:09.000
Alicia Evans: We're not going to get love me tender. That's the name

of that little thing and I put them next to me. I said, and we're all going to sing happy birthday to Paul it right. So I said, on the count of 3123 not everybody knows what happens when you sing or do music on zoom. There's that lag.

493
00:57:09.300 --> 00:57:14.940
Alicia Evans: So I've got 28 students and love me tender and we're gone, have you have you have a BA

494
00:57:21.390 --> 00:57:34.740
Alicia Evans: Late so the young girl is now crying. She Zoom is everywhere. She's in her bedroom, she goes to her dresser and she puts on a tiara.

495
00:57:36.900 --> 00:57:39.210
Alicia Evans: She's gonna remember this for the rest of our lives.

496
00:57:40.890 --> 00:57:41.520
Joysetta Pearse: Oh,

497
00:57:45.630 --> 00:57:45.960
Alicia Evans: My

498
00:57:46.050 --> 00:57:46.650
God

499
00:57:47.850 --> 00:57:48.690
Juilee Decker: That's a good one.

500
00:57:51.120 --> 00:57:57.510
Alicia Evans: So let me tell you about the art. So I started doing this crocheting a trees back in 2012

501
00:57:59.010 --> 00:58:05.970
Alicia Evans: When I didn't know what I was doing and I called myself a crochet artists, but I evolved and I am a fiber artists.

502
00:58:06.540 --> 00:58:24.000
Alicia Evans: Over last year, I want a scholarship to the University of South Carolina and our scholarship. I'm MoMA trains. I've got all

these accolades. Um, so when we started this year. Turns out I had three solo exhibitions before COVID

503
00:58:24.420 --> 00:58:40.320
Alicia Evans: And my last exhibition was at a the uniondale library out here solo exhibition. I'm that Saturday I come in and it took me like three hours to actually hang this thing huge facility. I'll send you pictures of that later on.

504
00:58:40.980 --> 00:58:51.420
Alicia Evans: And then the next thing you know, on Wednesday. Oh, so I put it in that on that Saturday, then it turns out on that Tuesday I had a workshop related to it.

505
00:58:52.650 --> 00:58:53.250
Alicia Evans: Excuse me.

506
00:58:54.810 --> 00:59:01.860
Alicia Evans: The workshop was related to it and it deals with abstracts and what you can create just said it was similar to the one that I did it took place.

507
00:59:01.950 --> 00:59:02.400
Joysetta Pearse: Okay, and

508
00:59:02.610 --> 00:59:09.720
Alicia Evans: Filled with young people, all the way up into senior citizens and we look good and the show was to open later on that week.

509
00:59:10.140 --> 00:59:19.050
Alicia Evans: Well then I get the message that oh, you know, the country is now lockdown. So I'm not thinking this is a serious illness as it is.

510
00:59:19.800 --> 00:59:25.320
Alicia Evans: My exhibition was to be up for a month. And I said, Well, you know, it took me dig on

511
00:59:26.220 --> 00:59:42.030
Alicia Evans: Six months to a year to do all of these items. So now I'm like, Well, you know, maybe we'll just leave it up until now this

will be a blow over in about two or three weeks when the woman said, You need to come get your stuff now mean

512
00:59:42.270 --> 00:59:51.810
Alicia Evans: And we don't know what's going to happen. Come get your stuff now. So I spend two hours. I take it out and, you know, bring it on home.

513
00:59:52.470 --> 00:59:55.440
Alicia Evans: And there was some smaller items that you can hold

514
00:59:55.920 --> 01:00:02.730
Alicia Evans: And I left those I left bills in the library because I said you know this small items I can always come back and get it.

515
01:00:02.970 --> 01:00:09.150
Alicia Evans: So meanwhile we are definitely in lockdown. We don't know when we're going to open up. I just got a call today.

516
01:00:09.480 --> 01:00:27.120
Alicia Evans: From the librarian and she says, Well, it really looks like we're not coming back. We are open, you know, 10 people in the library at a time, but I have your smaller pieces come back to pick up the piece. And I'm like, okay, so we are becoming even more insurance at one point.

517
01:00:28.290 --> 01:00:40.800
Alicia Evans: When everything started being locked down and we started not being able to find basic supplies of course yarn is not something that you know the essential workers in a factory are going to make. I couldn't find your

518
01:00:41.520 --> 01:00:50.010
Alicia Evans: Alright so Michaels is closed. A Seymour's close. Those are the local crafting places. So I just knew Walmart would always have anything I would ever want

519
01:00:50.310 --> 01:00:58.050
Alicia Evans: Walmart had no yarn on my, I will send you to my blog where I share. Like, I can't even get yarn.

520

01:00:58.860 --> 01:01:12.180
Alicia Evans: I was a friend of mine who lives in Brooklyn. She actually found yarn and she sent me a box filled with yarn and right now with things opening back up a little I I'm collecting your just in case.

521
01:01:12.720 --> 01:01:22.260
Alicia Evans: I'm fearful that we may close down again. So that's the situation with the the the art, um, go ahead, my love.

522
01:01:23.640 --> 01:01:39.180
Juilee Decker: Incredible I so appreciate your story about the fiber and fiber arts. I'm not a maker myself. My mom was a bit on fiber or this is so I when you said you couldn't find your my friend was panicked.

523
01:01:39.330 --> 01:01:40.530
Alicia Evans: Yeah, okay.

524
01:01:41.370 --> 01:01:44.700
Juilee Decker: Oh, yes. So I hear not from personal experience, but

525
01:01:44.700 --> 01:01:46.770
Juilee Decker: Yes around me. I get what you're saying.

526
01:01:46.830 --> 01:01:49.710
Alicia Evans: Oh, when you go to sleep at night. I don't come cheap. I'm sitting like

527
01:01:50.040 --> 01:01:51.870
Alicia Evans: Will I ever find you on again in life.

528
01:01:52.170 --> 01:01:53.340
Alicia Evans: What if I use my

529
01:01:53.400 --> 01:01:55.440
Alicia Evans: Brain is what will I ever do.

530
01:01:55.590 --> 01:01:57.360
Alicia Evans: A Cena, you get this unit.

531
01:01:57.450 --> 01:02:00.660
Alicia Evans: What is it gonna be like without your

532
01:02:02.490 --> 01:02:10.140
Alicia Evans: Father yarn. I am still crocheting now, but I'm like who and I crocheting for what exhibit

533
01:02:10.290 --> 01:02:10.860
Alicia Evans: Is coming up.

534
01:02:11.010 --> 01:02:15.690
Alicia Evans: Do I really want to do virtual exhibits and I'm mad about that.

535
01:02:18.180 --> 01:02:25.020
Alicia Evans: But the Metropolitan Museum. I believe it just opened, which I said they have Jacob Lawrence.

536
01:02:26.310 --> 01:02:26.700
Alicia Evans: Yes.

537
01:02:26.730 --> 01:02:37.590
Alicia Evans: Yes, so just open and despite the fact that I hear New York City city is empty, Times Square has no people in it. They said that the museum was coming.

538
01:02:39.150 --> 01:02:40.110
Alicia Evans: To the social distance

539
01:02:40.320 --> 01:02:41.640
Joysetta Pearse: Trying to fill that gap we

540
01:02:42.420 --> 01:02:49.860
Joysetta Pearse: We get more individual visits. Now, before it was all groups, you know, the senior citizens the schools. But now, people come in and two and three at a time. If

541
01:02:50.850 --> 01:02:58.500

Joysetta Pearse: They came in one week. They said, we'll be back next week because my aunt is coming in town, and we want to bring harkey it's small, but but it's constant and

542
01:02:58.860 --> 01:03:12.870
Joysetta Pearse: People need to get out. They need to know it's safe. You know, we take temperature, we have to have a mask on, you know, they have to socially distance. But when they have three and a family like that they are together and they know each other and they want to stay together.

543
01:03:13.020 --> 01:03:27.510
Joysetta Pearse: Yeah, if, if you're related and you want to sit together, we do allow that because they, you know, like a mother and father and two children, you know, kids don't mean to but but since they know each other and they come and sit next to anyone else.

544
01:03:28.020 --> 01:03:28.410
Joysetta Pearse: Am I

545
01:03:28.620 --> 01:03:33.210
Joysetta Pearse: See, when we show that when we show the movies and things. We have a maximum of like seven people

546
01:03:33.690 --> 01:03:35.880
Alicia Evans: Which is nowadays. That's a lot.

547
01:03:36.540 --> 01:03:36.780
Alicia Evans: Yeah.

548
01:03:37.620 --> 01:03:40.440
Alicia Evans: The numbers counted differently or mean different things now.

549
01:03:43.890 --> 01:03:48.780
Juilee Decker: Okay, so question three you you touched on this a little bit with the yarn, but question three is about what

550
01:03:49.110 --> 01:03:58.800
Juilee Decker: What's your code story. What have you been doing occupy your time, you kind of already touched on this, but is there anything

that you've been doing specifically that you wouldn't be doing during co bit unless it was Kobe.

551
01:03:59.580 --> 01:04:21.210
Alicia Evans: Um, he has a crazy thing and joy said. I said, make sure you share this. Um, I was a an adjunct professor. So I had been casually looking for another position for a while, but I wanted to make sure it was the right decision because I had been home at my school for 13 years

552
01:04:22.560 --> 01:04:35.910
Alicia Evans: But would you believe in the middle of COVID I found a job. So half of my summer was spent interviewing for this one place at this one place just going up the chain. So each week you know I'm preparing

553
01:04:36.210 --> 01:04:45.540
Alicia Evans: And I am so pleased to share. I'm working with a company called books at work and what they do is that the it's a text based

554
01:04:46.500 --> 01:04:51.750
Alicia Evans: They do conversations based on on text based on short stories, and it's to help companies.

555
01:04:52.350 --> 01:05:10.320
Alicia Evans: Work through, you know, to bring work on better relationships with employees or if it's some type of issue that they have to iron out, we use the text we use the literature to help people come together, um, this all ties in with years ago I had met years ago I'm

556
01:05:11.370 --> 01:05:16.800
Alicia Evans: Consistently doing in between semesters. I do facilitation.

557
01:05:17.130 --> 01:05:23.490
Alicia Evans: I create conversations I had a program called the living room experience where meaningful change lives.

558
01:05:23.700 --> 01:05:37.560
Alicia Evans: I work with the New York Council for the Humanities at school. We have created candid conversations with students. So here I

am at this new place, and I've literally just started at this new place where I'm

559
01:05:38.550 --> 01:05:52.650
Alicia Evans: Not only am I doing facilitation will be doing facilitation I'm involved with professors. The other facilitators, I think there's three 400 other facilitators. I'm here with the training and development of these professors

560
01:05:53.340 --> 01:06:12.780
Alicia Evans: To do the same work. So again, I'm able to work to help impact humanity to make us a better person to make us more reflective and it's really a place of working experience experientially and working with transformation of the human spirit.

561
01:06:13.260 --> 01:06:14.910
Alicia Evans: So that's keeping me

562
01:06:14.910 --> 01:06:16.470
Alicia Evans: Busy that's

563
01:06:16.590 --> 01:06:20.280
Alicia Evans: Me 100% busy and I'm just, I'm just too thrilled.

564
01:06:20.700 --> 01:06:27.300
Juilee Decker: Oh my, yes. That's amazing. Congratulations. What an awesome job and what a great experience.

565
01:06:27.360 --> 01:06:27.930
Alicia Evans: Oh my

566
01:06:27.960 --> 01:06:28.830
Alicia Evans: Gosh.

567
01:06:28.980 --> 01:06:31.770
Juilee Decker: If they have you. You're the perfect person for this.

568
01:06:31.800 --> 01:06:33.630
Alicia Evans: Oh my goodness. Thank you, my love.

569
01:06:33.630 --> 01:06:34.320
Alicia Evans: Thank you.

570
01:06:34.500 --> 01:06:38.850
Alicia Evans: Thank you. Thank you. It seems like a good team. I'm really looking forward to this and they keep

571
01:06:38.910 --> 01:06:39.510
Alicia Evans: You busy.

572
01:06:39.900 --> 01:06:40.110
Oh,

573
01:06:41.280 --> 01:06:42.540
Alicia Evans: And I get to read

574
01:06:45.390 --> 01:06:55.980
Juilee Decker: That's like, that's like my, that's one of my hobbies, if you call it a hobby. I just to be able to read and to understand and, oh, it's like, Oh, that's so exciting. That's really cool.

575
01:06:56.010 --> 01:07:11.100
Alicia Evans: Yeah, for this. Yes. Yeah. You know what's what's missing, though. Remember I love to go out singing karaoke or whatever those places have gone now. And, you know, I'll pass by some of these, they might be

576
01:07:12.150 --> 01:07:23.250
Alicia Evans: Clubs, they might be, you know, the karaoke bars, the gun or if they are open. It's the summertime hours and you have to sit outside. So all of that camaraderie is gone.

577
01:07:23.730 --> 01:07:36.960
Alicia Evans: It's been you know folks are trying to replace it online. But again, with the zoom the music and the Zoom is just not going to happen. Not when I miss that. Yeah, that I really, really miss. But there's a good piece here, just that. Are you still there.

578
01:07:37.650 --> 01:07:37.770
I

579
01:07:39.570 --> 01:07:39.810
Alicia Evans: Think

580
01:07:40.140 --> 01:07:49.140
Alicia Evans: There's a town here and NASA County, which is called um it's a village is called the village of Hempstead and every summer they have these outdoor concerts.

581
01:07:49.860 --> 01:07:52.290
Alicia Evans: In the middle of going on in driving by

582
01:07:52.620 --> 01:08:05.130
Alicia Evans: Saying, oh my goodness, you know, it's almost like the morning of of things. We used to have. So the beginning of summer. I'd pass the pocket. I'm like, oh boy, I'm so glad I went over the years. That's not happening anymore.

583
01:08:05.370 --> 01:08:22.740
Alicia Evans: The village of Hempstead worked it out to bring back these Friday night concerts. Yes. You had social distancing but you had the bands you had maybe 70 people and the mayor actually came down, I took pictures. Again I will share with you.

584
01:08:22.830 --> 01:08:23.430
Alicia Evans: To show you

585
01:08:23.460 --> 01:08:24.540
Alicia Evans: What that look like

586
01:08:24.690 --> 01:08:25.290
Alicia Evans: So we

587
01:08:25.440 --> 01:08:27.960
Alicia Evans: Be there singing and I'd be yelling over

588
01:08:30.630 --> 01:08:31.320
Alicia Evans: Oh, yes. 589

01:08:33.120 --> 01:08:46.500
Alicia Evans: Oh my joy. So definitely in the month of August, do not bother me. My Friday nights. I'm out for live music and moderating have been with you know community.

590
01:08:46.800 --> 01:08:47.490
Juilee Decker: Yeah yeah

591
01:08:47.880 --> 01:08:48.990
Alicia Evans: Beautiful, so you

592
01:08:49.530 --> 01:08:51.900
Juilee Decker: Know that's a place of, quote, no malice.

593
01:08:52.260 --> 01:09:01.920
Juilee Decker: Yes, yes, I'm a question for is about groups that you're involved with. So how has the pandemic affected the groups that you're a part of

594
01:09:02.490 --> 01:09:19.170
Alicia Evans: Well, and, you know, with the singing groups, of course, we can't do anything. I'm somewhat look what losing touch with them, you know, I see them perhaps on Facebook, but not in that same intimate setting, you know, how you doing, I missed that I'm

595
01:09:20.640 --> 01:09:32.670
Alicia Evans: Just not sure if I shared with you. I had been going to some of the events at the ethical Society of Long Island, and of course that is everything on that is now zoom

596
01:09:32.970 --> 01:09:33.360
And

597
01:09:34.470 --> 01:09:40.980
Alicia Evans: It's just, it's, it feels strange, strange, I have since become a board member

598
01:09:43.980 --> 01:09:47.370
Alicia Evans: Become a board member with the ethical Society of long 599

01:09:50.220 --> 01:09:56.280
Alicia Evans: Yeah, ethical, I'm sorry, the ethical humanist society among them. I'm avoiding them I'm getting the name wrong. Oh.

600
01:09:57.300 --> 01:09:57.720
Juilee Decker: Okay.

601
01:09:58.140 --> 01:10:01.380
Juilee Decker: No one knows, except the three of us, we're good. It's all good. Oh, corrected.

602
01:10:01.440 --> 01:10:02.370
Juilee Decker: The record show it.

603
01:10:04.500 --> 01:10:13.800
Juilee Decker: Number five is what word would you use to describe your feeling at the beginning of comin and now

604
01:10:14.430 --> 01:10:16.350
Alicia Evans: Okay to feelings.

605
01:10:17.460 --> 01:10:29.280
Alicia Evans: When I found out I did not have to travel two hours, two and two hours back from school every, you know, those two days. I'm like, Yes, there was. I was ecstatic.

606
01:10:29.790 --> 01:10:49.110
Alicia Evans: I didn't know what remote learning meant or, you know, teaching. I was absolutely thrilled. But that thrill turned into like amazement, like, really, I think I was quite shocked. I'm wondering what's happening, you know, is this serious

607
01:10:50.880 --> 01:10:51.930
Alicia Evans: I'm still in shock.

608
01:10:53.940 --> 01:10:54.180
Joysetta Pearse: Yeah.

609
01:10:56.580 --> 01:10:57.330
Juilee Decker: I understand that.

610
01:10:58.890 --> 01:11:04.470
Juilee Decker: And then the last question is, is there anything else you'd like to share about your COVID story.

611
01:11:05.370 --> 01:11:09.480
Alicia Evans: You know, now I'm AND I WAS JUST CHATTING WITH SOMEONE this morning.

612
01:11:10.560 --> 01:11:21.210
Alicia Evans: And we're all talking about such sadness. When is this going to end. And I was saying. One of the ways I make it through each day is I find a piece of joy.

613
01:11:21.750 --> 01:11:31.080
Alicia Evans: During my day that I can reflect on in the evenings and then the joy like this will be part of my reflections in the evening the joy of sharing my stories.

614
01:11:32.250 --> 01:11:40.560
Alicia Evans: And it might be the joy of just, you know, being able to elbow somebody I haven't seen in a long time. Oboe meaning. Hello, um,

615
01:11:42.390 --> 01:11:42.840
Juilee Decker: Yeah.

616
01:11:43.230 --> 01:11:55.320
Alicia Evans: It's done. So I use that and and I am I have hope I have hope. And I realized that each and every person can contribute to the hope.

617
01:11:55.740 --> 01:12:07.050
Alicia Evans: And maybe collectively we can find a way to shift this over to what we can call our new norm, because right now. I think we're still in flux. I have another funny story for you. You got time for that.

618
01:12:07.440 --> 01:12:07.710
Juilee Decker: Yeah. 619

01:12:07.980 --> 01:12:09.390
Alicia Evans: Yeah okay so

620
01:12:10.590 --> 01:12:26.310
Alicia Evans: I've been here 26 years. I don't know. My name is I am I'm embarrassed. Okay, suburban area I run in I run out. I'm doing this. I know you face having are you doing anyway, my next door neighbor, um, hold on one second. I want to close the window.

621
01:12:31.980 --> 01:12:35.040
Juilee Decker: She has gone you made your mask and your headband. Didn't you

622
01:12:35.130 --> 01:12:35.670
Yes.

623
01:12:37.980 --> 01:12:39.900
Joysetta Pearse: To bed in our sit in it club.

624
01:12:40.080 --> 01:12:42.540
Juilee Decker: I just thought it was like that looks

625
01:12:44.040 --> 01:12:47.070
Alicia Evans: Alright, um, I just wanted. It's nothing bad

626
01:12:47.190 --> 01:12:48.060
Alicia Evans: But I just don't want

627
01:12:48.360 --> 01:12:52.200
Alicia Evans: To hear their names. But anyway, um, you know what, let me try to sell a home.

628
01:12:56.910 --> 01:12:58.380
Alicia Evans: Alright, so the

629
01:12:59.430 --> 01:13:08.790
Alicia Evans: My, my next door neighbors here. They have a dog. I don't know anything about dogs. I don't have time for a pen. But anyway, they've got this dog and it's some type of

630
01:13:09.390 --> 01:13:14.940
Alicia Evans: I don't know, a blend of a German Shepherd poodle. I know I'm getting it wrong, but this is a miniature version of it right

631
01:13:15.360 --> 01:13:26.340
Alicia Evans: Anyway, I, I have time now to pull us and say hello. So this dog and I, you know, I'm going to tell you he's become my boyfriend. So when I come in and it's a male dog and when

632
01:13:28.290 --> 01:13:36.540
Alicia Evans: He won't speak to my brother, so definitely man and he comes over and he's always speaking I even let this door mouth lick my hand I

633
01:13:36.840 --> 01:13:56.550
Alicia Evans: Before I wasn't into dogs. I'm like hey baby snip through the fence on my head. I'm like, Oh, I love you, or so so also is now my, my boyfriend. So also, um, it's a good dog very brilliant dog, but it also has an opportunity to get down to the gate also is gone. Right. So in the house.

634
01:13:57.690 --> 01:14:06.180
Alicia Evans: This you know family upstairs and then there's a family on the on the lower level and they have a little girl who's about, I don't know, four or five years old.

635
01:14:07.290 --> 01:14:16.290
Alicia Evans: And there's also a baby in the house, but with COVID
as much as I love children and the elderly, I try to keep awake, keep my mask on, I want I am into safety.

636
01:14:16.770 --> 01:14:23.820
Alicia Evans: What anyway. One day the dog escapes and the dogs going running down the block having a good time.

637
01:14:24.180 --> 01:14:34.830
Alicia Evans: Outcomes. The mother outcomes. The Father, the next thing you know I'm joining we're all running around the drama, blah, like the Pied Piper another neighbor two and three blocks away. Come on.

638

01:14:35.190 --> 01:14:51.810
Alicia Evans: We gotta get so we have to get awesome. Well, anyway, also gets 10 houses away and also decides to go into the backyards and work his way back to his original home and he's hopping fences, you know, this is like a galloping Kentucky Derby with

639
01:14:53.760 --> 01:15:07.170
Alicia Evans: Me why my knees are starting to hurt so I come and sit in the middle of my lawn, because I'm tired. Right. So now all of the people, all of the neighbors are now coming back this way because also has gone from the back. He was so also goes to

640
01:15:07.500 --> 01:15:12.990
Alicia Evans: My backyard and he comes and sits in my lap. Remember, I don't like dogs but me and

641
01:15:14.820 --> 01:15:30.540
Alicia Evans: He's in my lap and I'm holding right so the Pied Piper, the 20 people and now in front of my house and I'm holding the dog and I'm good. I'm pretty good old and the dog. I like someone needs to come get this dog and the dog licks my face, get this

642
01:15:31.230 --> 01:15:44.940
Alicia Evans: Right now, so they come, they take the dog me while the little five year old and I'm sitting down on the little, the little five year old comes over and gives me the biggest hug left ever. This is the lady.

643
01:15:46.440 --> 01:15:46.620
Alicia Evans: Told

644
01:15:51.030 --> 01:15:53.220
Alicia Evans: Me, while the kids hugging me. I got dogs.

645
01:15:56.220 --> 01:15:56.580
Alicia Evans: What

646
01:15:57.870 --> 01:16:09.960
Alicia Evans: That was a COVID bonding because everybody if this was pre code that I would look down the blocks like oh, big it awesome than me. And also we like that retired.

647
01:16:11.880 --> 01:16:15.630
Alicia Evans: Gonna bring him in for dinner, brothers, like, yeah, that'll be the day you move up.

648
01:16:18.150 --> 01:16:20.880
Alicia Evans: And we serve me so I'm into animals.

649
01:16:20.940 --> 01:16:27.450
Alicia Evans: I know my neighbors names. Now I didn't do that before COVID and never thought to do that before COVID

650
01:16:28.230 --> 01:16:31.980
Juilee Decker: But you know the these are silver linings right these are our silver

651
01:16:32.130 --> 01:16:35.760
Juilee Decker: Yes, we have to we have to clutch them when we can

652
01:16:37.350 --> 01:16:44.550
Alicia Evans: Still morning my is my last morning story and it's real, you know, quick, we have locked the commuter rail here the Long Island Railroad.

653
01:16:45.180 --> 01:16:55.890
Alicia Evans: And at my particular station. I want to say maybe three
400 people part in different parking lots around. So one day I go and I sit in the parking lot of Freeport, I'm just said a

654
01:16:56.610 --> 01:17:06.840
Alicia Evans: Report. And I said, Well, I want to see how many people would get off this train. It was like the 546 coming back from Manhattan, and that's the train, I would have gotten off if I worked in the city.

655
01:17:07.350 --> 01:17:17.010
Alicia Evans: And I'm waiting 12 cars come in huge long cars. Normally when the doors open it tons hundreds of people get off and they're rushing to their cars.

656
01:17:17.430 --> 01:17:22.560

Alicia Evans: The doors open 1200 and I counted seven people that got off during

657
01:17:23.460 --> 01:17:24.090
Joysetta Pearse: Wow, and

658
01:17:24.540 --> 01:17:34.980
Alicia Evans: amaze sitting there like, oh my goodness, this can't be in the meantime I take a look at the parking lot that used to have hundreds of cars in the parking lot only had 20 cars.

659
01:17:35.070 --> 01:17:49.050
Alicia Evans: Wow, wow, wow, wow. So life has changed and I'm still morning and I'm sure each and every one of you, there's something that your morning and I'll whole country is in morning

660
01:17:51.480 --> 01:17:55.260
Alicia Evans: Will it come back, let not come back. I don't know. I really don't know.

661
01:17:57.780 --> 01:17:58.590
Joysetta Pearse: Make it come back.

662
01:18:00.180 --> 01:18:01.500
Joysetta Pearse: up to us to make a comeback.

663
01:18:01.590 --> 01:18:02.370
Alicia Evans: Yes, it is.

664
01:18:02.670 --> 01:18:10.860
Joysetta Pearse: And I'm just talking about peace and harmony doesn't have to be in the same. It doesn't have to look the same but it's got it right out of your harmony. Yeah, yeah.

665
01:18:10.920 --> 01:18:13.020
Alicia Evans: I'm going to show you my signature piece.

666
01:18:18.600 --> 01:18:19.260
Alicia Evans: Okay.

667
01:18:21.120 --> 01:18:22.290
Alicia Evans: We're gonna walk over here.

668
01:18:25.350 --> 01:18:28.140
Alicia Evans: So this is called tremendous

669
01:18:29.550 --> 01:18:29.760
Oh,

670
01:18:31.170 --> 01:18:31.650
Juilee Decker: Yeah.

671
01:18:31.920 --> 01:18:34.440
Juilee Decker: Oh yeah, oh, that's beautiful.

672
01:18:34.920 --> 01:18:42.360
Alicia Evans: And I usually crochet the, I don't know if you can see it I crocheted the the the wooded pieces inside

673
01:18:42.750 --> 01:18:45.540
Alicia Evans: Yeah, any color that you see here.

674
01:18:46.260 --> 01:18:48.660
Alicia Evans: It is all one piece of thread.

675
01:18:48.870 --> 01:18:49.410
Joysetta Pearse: Wow.

676
01:18:49.470 --> 01:18:50.520
Joysetta Pearse: My goodness.

677
01:18:51.210 --> 01:18:58.740
Alicia Evans: And so what happens is that arm with the with the piece. What happens is that it looks like this.

678
01:19:01.110 --> 01:19:04.530
Alicia Evans: Anytime I crochet the pieces look like this. If you can see

679
01:19:05.640 --> 01:19:09.000
Joysetta Pearse: And we do you, how does it get on the on the board there.

680
01:19:09.330 --> 01:19:11.670
Alicia Evans: Um, so what happens is, hold on.

681
01:19:15.870 --> 01:19:20.220
Alicia Evans: Part of my leg 1960s abstract like three. Okay.

682
01:19:21.360 --> 01:19:23.220
Alicia Evans: So sorry.

683
01:19:26.550 --> 01:19:28.020
Alicia Evans: Okay, so what happens

684
01:19:31.020 --> 01:19:32.940
Alicia Evans: Is that it will look like this.

685
01:19:34.410 --> 01:19:49.200
Alicia Evans: Alright, so it looks like a piece of nothing but the yarn begins to speak to me, depending on what stitches. I put their, their like this piece here is naturally moving in a circle. If you can see, can you see that

686
01:19:50.130 --> 01:19:55.410
Alicia Evans: I'm doing it so it naturally moves in a circle and I go with whatever the yarn says to me.

687
01:19:55.680 --> 01:20:01.650
Alicia Evans: Wow, I always say let the yarn speak but usually these pieces of fall for longer.

688
01:20:02.760 --> 01:20:09.570
Alicia Evans: End up doing is, you know, working on something separate and then out transferred onto it on some type of particular backing.

689
01:20:09.840 --> 01:20:10.290

Joysetta Pearse: Wow.

690
01:20:10.650 --> 01:20:20.940
Alicia Evans: I sculpted into a tree when I'm doing it. I don't know what that tree is going to look like I've since gotten into trees. And like I said, the face thing like there.

691
01:20:22.080 --> 01:20:27.210
Alicia Evans: There is a face another face piece I'm working on right now. Hold on.

692
01:20:29.070 --> 01:20:31.050
Alicia Evans: You're in my studio and

693
01:20:34.020 --> 01:20:41.610
Alicia Evans: I'm working on mass. So you still love me tender. This is another version of a mass and I called green cedar cedar.

694
01:20:43.350 --> 01:20:43.800
Joysetta Pearse: Oh,

695
01:20:43.950 --> 01:20:48.360
Alicia Evans: Oh. Oh, what am I was her eyes got jacked up. Oh my god.

696
01:20:51.210 --> 01:20:51.720
Juilee Decker: That's really

697
01:20:51.780 --> 01:20:53.700
Alicia Evans: Okay, so she had some eyes.

698
01:20:53.820 --> 01:20:55.950
Alicia Evans: Oh, women. Yes, it is. Here's the eyes.

699
01:20:56.370 --> 01:20:56.970
Juilee Decker: Mm hmm.

700
01:20:57.150 --> 01:20:58.200
Alicia Evans: And this is her lip.

701
01:20:58.650 --> 01:21:07.350
Alicia Evans: Mm hmm. And all of this. Yeah, everything here. Do I said, you know, this young is one piece of young. This is that young a different color.

702
01:21:07.560 --> 01:21:15.630
Alicia Evans: Yeah, yeah. So we're working with mass. But back to the traditional trees. This is a traditional one right here.

703
01:21:19.980 --> 01:21:20.370
Juilee Decker: Yeah.

704
01:21:23.190 --> 01:21:24.720
Alicia Evans: This is my tribute to

705
01:21:25.350 --> 01:21:27.990
Alicia Evans: Prince. It's called Purple Rain are

706
01:21:30.840 --> 01:21:31.920
Joysetta Pearse: Low

707
01:21:32.370 --> 01:21:34.200
Alicia Evans: Stress is little head, this would be like a

708
01:21:34.200 --> 01:21:34.740
Alicia Evans: side view.

709
01:21:35.130 --> 01:21:37.080
Alicia Evans: Maybe this will come up that way.

710
01:21:37.800 --> 01:21:41.400
Alicia Evans: Yeah, and that's his little, I don't know, whatever that symbol was

711
01:21:41.640 --> 01:21:42.030
Yeah.

712
01:21:43.950 --> 01:21:45.600

Alicia Evans: And this the last piece here.

713
01:21:47.670 --> 01:21:50.250
Alicia Evans: Okay. Who are those are the easy ones that I sent you can see

714
01:21:51.450 --> 01:21:52.260
Juilee Decker: That's amazing.

715
01:21:52.350 --> 01:21:53.460
Alicia Evans: Oh my. Thank you.

716
01:21:53.670 --> 01:21:59.040
Juilee Decker: Oh my goodness, that's beautiful. Just so abstract, but you can still see the

717
01:22:00.690 --> 01:22:01.560
Alicia Evans: Yes.

718
01:22:01.830 --> 01:22:06.810
Alicia Evans: Wow. Yes. So I have fun with that I'm working on Christmas trees right now.

719
01:22:08.700 --> 01:22:14.400
Alicia Evans: And so you know people who have limited space. This is something you can take a tree and just throw it up on the wall.

720
01:22:18.270 --> 01:22:20.850
Alicia Evans: This is over, you take it, you put it back in the closet.

721
01:22:21.870 --> 01:22:22.680
Juilee Decker: Exactly right.

722
01:22:22.740 --> 01:22:24.120
Alicia Evans: Yes, yes, yes.

723
01:22:24.330 --> 01:22:33.750
Juilee Decker: Oh, Alicia. This is so nice. It was so nice. Spend time

with you. Oh my goodness. This was like this was really exciting. And just so many threads, no pun intended. So

724
01:22:35.520 --> 01:22:36.360
Juilee Decker: Your story.

725
01:22:38.220 --> 01:22:45.060
Juilee Decker: Goes in all these different directions. But it all comes back together. It's about human connection. I mean all shared

726
01:22:45.390 --> 01:22:50.220
Joysetta Pearse: Yeah well representative of Alicia all directions.

727
01:22:53.460 --> 01:22:54.750
Alicia Evans: There is a

728
01:22:57.900 --> 01:23:00.660
Alicia Evans: That you know what we have. We talk about Black Lives Matter.

729
01:23:01.740 --> 01:23:03.870
Alicia Evans: And one of the pieces that I created.

730
01:23:05.160 --> 01:23:17.700
Alicia Evans: recently created was to give homage to what's going on and to to ask for peace and this is um you getting a chance to see this one. This is, I forget the name of it. But I'll tell you later on. But this is a white tree.

731
01:23:19.080 --> 01:23:20.220
Alicia Evans: Are you able to see this.

732
01:23:20.430 --> 01:23:21.120
Yeah yeah

733
01:23:22.410 --> 01:23:28.530
Alicia Evans: So the colors are symbolic of, you know, we all need to come together and find some peace here.

734

01:23:28.890 --> 01:23:29.400
Mm hmm.

735
01:23:32.340 --> 01:23:32.700
Yeah.

736
01:23:34.650 --> 01:23:35.040
Juilee Decker: Yeah.

737
01:23:38.670 --> 01:23:39.120
Juilee Decker: Yeah.
***technical difficulties
743
01:23:58.140 --> 01:23:59.880
Alicia Evans: Did that make sense. We had that

744
01:24:00.000 --> 01:24:00.900
Joysetta Pearse: We didn't hear you.

745
01:24:01.260 --> 01:24:01.590
Juilee Decker: We didn't

746
01:24:02.160 --> 01:24:04.110
Alicia Evans: Know that call coming in. Okay, so

747
01:24:04.650 --> 01:24:07.920
Juilee Decker: I already saw it and we start with the white and the black and the orange.

748
01:24:10.020 --> 01:24:11.280
Alicia Evans: Is frayed engines.

749
01:24:11.910 --> 01:24:14.430
Alicia Evans: Oh my goodness. I said this is representative

750
01:24:14.460 --> 01:24:24.990
Alicia Evans: Of our country where we are in front with let these frayed edges different colors. But if we would all come together to make something during the piece that you find in the likeness of the tree.

751
01:24:26.010 --> 01:24:27.750
Joysetta Pearse: Yeah. Yeah. Nice.

752
01:24:27.810 --> 01:24:32.130
Juilee Decker: No, that's Alicia. That was beautiful. Thank you so much. I really appreciate

753
01:24:32.700 --> 01:24:34.530
Alicia Evans: My Love. You're quite welcome.

754
01:24:34.770 --> 01:24:36.870
Juilee Decker: That was great. I'm going to have a real hard.

755
01:24:42.210 --> 01:24:43.560
Juilee Decker: To feel it but that's an act like you

756
01:24:44.760 --> 01:24:45.000
Alicia Evans: Know,

757
01:24:45.300 --> 01:24:51.720
Alicia Evans: You know, just said to say you got to talk. I'm like, I'm gonna, I don't know what I'm gonna say, and then I'm like, Okay.

Let's just, let's just do it. Something to come up

758
01:24:52.170 --> 01:24:52.530
Yeah.

759
01:24:54.510 --> 01:24:56.670
Juilee Decker: It was great. Thank you so much for your time.

760
01:24:56.850 --> 01:24:57.540
Alicia Evans: Thank you.

761
01:24:57.600 --> 01:25:00.360
Alicia Evans: What happens now is it posted a, what do you do

762
01:25:00.450 --> 01:25:05.520
Juilee Decker: But what I have to do is I go back through, I'm still working through ones from last week and

763
01:25:05.910 --> 01:25:18.840
Juilee Decker: All separated into this section. So like yours will be separated from the person who would do it after. And then I'll write up a short description of it, and then I'll post it. And then this would take weeks. Right.

764
01:25:19.590 --> 01:25:25.320
Juilee Decker: And then you I'll send you the link so you can see it. So if there's anything that needs to be changed or something. I can tell.

765
01:25:25.320 --> 01:25:27.390
Alicia Evans: Okay, but that way it'll

766
01:25:27.570 --> 01:25:29.370
Juilee Decker: It'll all all the ones coming

767
01:25:29.370 --> 01:25:43.590
Juilee Decker: Together come under Long Island community. So it'll all come a long island stories. I think is what we decided, so it'll be it'll be its own thing. Somebody searched it would they would come together as like

768
01:25:43.650 --> 01:25:44.190
Alicia Evans: A plane.

769
01:25:44.460 --> 01:25:45.420
Juilee Decker: If that makes sense.

770
01:25:46.890 --> 01:25:49.440
Alicia Evans: Um, do you use photos unique photos.

771
01:25:49.590 --> 01:25:50.700
Juilee Decker: Oh yeah, yeah, it's many

772
01:25:51.540 --> 01:25:53.760
Alicia Evans: Love Me tender. And then the last one you saw there.

773
01:25:53.820 --> 01:25:55.530
Juilee Decker: Oh, that would be great. That would be wonderful.

774
01:25:55.620 --> 01:25:56.430
Juilee Decker: I would love that.

775
01:25:58.950 --> 01:26:03.870
Alicia Evans: Of the of that part because I don't have people's faces in it. I could probably send you that

776
01:26:04.050 --> 01:26:05.010
Alicia Evans: To see how they speak.

777
01:26:05.070 --> 01:26:10.530
Juilee Decker: Out for that concert. Okay. Okay. That would be awesome. Thank you so much.

778
01:26:12.000 --> 01:26:13.530
Alicia Evans: Thank you for pushing me

779
01:26:13.590 --> 01:26:13.950
Joysetta Pearse: Yes.

780
01:26:14.010 --> 01:26:28.440
Alicia Evans: Yes, yes, yes. Thank you, do I set a really is. She was also behind me, give me this new job because it was at the African American Museum that I first did the facilitation for the you on your council for the Humanities.

781
01:26:29.880 --> 01:26:31.230
Alicia Evans: recommended me. Yes.

782
01:26:31.320 --> 01:26:38.280
Joysetta Pearse: She made such a big hit just doing that program that the person who was in charge of it is who got in touch with her about the new job.

783
01:26:39.840 --> 01:26:40.740
Juilee Decker: That's amazing.

784
01:26:41.100 --> 01:26:43.020
Alicia Evans: Yes, so I have to get. Thank you.

785
01:26:45.390 --> 01:26:47.550
Joysetta Pearse: It's you, it's you.

786
01:26:49.680 --> 01:26:55.290
Alicia Evans: Thank you for the opportunity. And it's so wonderful meeting. We're going to meet in person, you know that.

787
01:26:55.650 --> 01:26:55.980
Joysetta Pearse: I'm sure

788
01:26:56.430 --> 01:26:59.280
Joysetta Pearse: We'll see us when she gets back to New York and when she has time

789
01:27:00.990 --> 01:27:01.320
I will

790
01:27:02.370 --> 01:27:04.590

Juilee Decker: And we'll have we'll have a little coffee date or something.

791
01:27:05.190 --> 01:27:06.810
Alicia Evans: When you are. We are you.

792
01:27:07.110 --> 01:27:08.310
Juilee Decker: I'm in Rochester. So I'm in

793
01:27:08.550 --> 01:27:09.840
Alicia Evans: Westchester, okay.

794
01:27:09.960 --> 01:27:11.520
Juilee Decker: All right, but I will

795
01:27:11.580 --> 01:27:12.900
Alicia Evans: Happen, I am sure.

796
01:27:13.170 --> 01:27:18.120
Juilee Decker: I know people people. I used to live in Kentucky and I used to live in the South in deeper south from the Deep South.

797
01:27:18.510 --> 01:27:25.590
Juilee Decker: Uh huh. People and my students and Kentucky that I used to teach, they're like, well, you probably go to New York, all the time. I'm like, no.

798
01:27:26.250 --> 01:27:26.460
Alicia Evans: Like

799
01:27:26.610 --> 01:27:29.070
Juilee Decker: Seven and a half hours by train. Thank you very

800
01:27:30.540 --> 01:27:32.940
Juilee Decker: Much like I'm not driving in New York City.

801
01:27:33.120 --> 01:27:33.450
And then

802
01:27:34.770 --> 01:27:36.810
Juilee Decker: You're geographically challenged and so

803
01:27:37.590 --> 01:27:43.260
Juilee Decker: They don't understand like I'm closer to Kentucky, like where you live is nice way like

804
01:27:45.390 --> 01:27:54.510
Juilee Decker: Any other time. So, so the point is I, I, when I lived in Kentucky. I used to go to be much more often, because I had to get up in like once every five years.

805
01:27:54.510 --> 01:27:56.070
Alicia Evans: Right, right, right. But

806
01:27:56.460 --> 01:27:58.350
Juilee Decker: Because I had to get a plane ticket.

807
01:27:59.010 --> 01:27:59.490
Alicia Evans: Yes.

808
01:27:59.550 --> 01:28:15.870
Juilee Decker: I'm off from work, you had to figure out where to stay and all those steps took so much effort and money that it was like saving my opinion to do it. And it's only seven and a half hours by train. I just, I've done at once, since we looked at one time.

809
01:28:18.150 --> 01:28:21.000
Juilee Decker: There was a couple times for a project I'm working on with the cadets, but

810
01:28:21.060 --> 01:28:24.270
Juilee Decker: Right, like to the city once

811
01:28:25.890 --> 01:28:27.480
Juilee Decker: Or twice, and I have come to

812
01:28:31.680 --> 01:28:33.180
Joysetta Pearse: Expect been wonderful, wonderful.

813
01:28:33.180 --> 01:28:34.140
Alicia Evans: Day. Thank you.

814
01:28:35.130 --> 01:28:36.570
Joysetta Pearse: Good night to reflect on

815
01:28:36.960 --> 01:28:40.710
Alicia Evans: Yeah. Yes. Part of that. That's the gym tonight. Thank you guys.

816
01:28:42.390 --> 01:28:43.200
Alicia Evans: Good evening.

817
01:28:43.260 --> 01:28:43.680
Juilee Decker: Thank you.