We have all been living through extraordinary times. As written in my recent column for Sports Car Market magazine, I am reminded lately by a familiar scene I used to perform as baritone in Act Two of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Macbeth. After recovering from his nightmare, Macbeth sings ‘La Vita Riprendo’ – ‘life resumes – setting the tone for his future to unfold. I, too, have been waiting for our lives to resume and while some signs are heartening, others continue to show that life as we knew it before is still on hold, and for good reason considering the alarming reality of this pandemic.
It’s easy to remember and yet difficult at times to comprehend that just three months ago, I along with many of my fellow car enthusiasts together enjoyed the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, a gathering of so much more than just cars. As the nation and world around us slowly shut down in the days and weeks following, we automotive enthusiasts continued to enjoy a vibrant and active community, until even we had to make some big changes to keep moving forward. For many friends living outside of the US, especially those in Italy, they could no longer freely move beyond their front door. So, while I was still able to get into one of my classic cars and go for a weekend drive in New England to renew my spirit from the world around, my Italian friends didn’t have such freedom, only allowed to leave home for groceries or medical reasons.
Now in early summer, as much of the world slowly reopens, or perhaps even temporarily shuts back down depending on where you live, the road ahead is unclear and no one really seems to have clarity on the best course of action…though one thing is clear to me and that is that we all universally want to live well.
In my role as CEO of Audrain, LLC in Newport RI, this has underscored the importance of bringing more culture, education and entertainment to as many people as possible to help enrich our lives, especially now when traditional gatherings are still on hold. As a first step, we began a series of twice weekly YouTube videos on our channel in which I toured the gallery and our storage building, sharing stories about our exhibition and collection.
The videos have proven to be popular and encouraged us to take further steps into this virtual world with an actual real-time, live-streamed walk-through for our recent exhibition, “Shining Bright: Advances in Automotive Lighting”, which opened on May 1st and runs through August 9th. Traditionally, we inaugurate a new show with a member’s preview evening, but this couldn’t be done. As one who always has accepted a challenge to turn it around into an opportunity, I realized that a virtual tour and exhibition preview would be a fantastic way to welcome not just our local community, but the world at large, through our doors in Newport, via computer or smartphone.
In fact, the program brought hundreds more to the event than we could have ever imagined to accommodate inside the museum and we were thrilled! We have kept up the momentum with frequent YouTube videos, which has also allowed me to blend my worlds by bringing the audience who has followed my work for years to the museum. Timing couldn’t have been better either because the opening of ‘Shining Bright’ also corresponded with the opening of the 5th season of ‘Jay Leno’s Garage’ on CNBC. Ever grateful, all of these appearances have kept me connected with an even-larger pool of enthusiasts and introduced me to the potential in creating entertaining and educational content with high production values.
With all these digital connections that have tightened our bonds amid a physically-distanced society one can only wonder how our life will evolve. For me, I am confident that our lives will rebound beautifully, renewed by our realization of needing social interaction beyond the computer, a heightened interest in higher-quality content and experiences in our lives and perhaps an even bigger ‘backyard’ so to speak, due to the overall increase of international and domestic online audiences accustomed to tuning in more than before. All of these effects from our pandemic support the overall health of the collector car world and I, for one, am inspired by the possibilities.