Onni Nordman and Paula Muise are fairly friendly with anxiety, at this point.

After sweating the details of an accelerated departure from Europe, the Cape Breton couple are practically laughing off the impacts of self-isolation.

This is why were hoping that maybe therell be an earthquake or a plague of locusts, just to keep us on edge, Muise said Wednesday during a video chat from their home overlooking Sydney Harbour.

About a week ago, Nordman, a noted painter, was in the midst of a residency at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, outside Munich, Germany. Having coincidentally created several works there based on viruses since early February, he and Muise had become worried about how the rapidly evolving COVID-19 situation might affect their self-financed trip.

A plan to perhaps stay in the relative comfort of a villa in Munich proved overly optimistic.

I took the paintings down from the biochemistry institute pretty much the day before they closed, said Nordman.

They were able to ship their belongings last Friday, the day before Munich pretty much shut down. Then, thanks to the determination of their travel agent, Nordman and Muise managed to get a Munich-to-Toronto flight.

We almost got sort of like the first-class treatment on the plane because there were so few people on it, Nordman said.

The (Munich) airport was eerie in its emptiness, but then everything is now.

They landed in Halifax on Monday at about 10 p.m. and drove through the overnight hours to Cape Breton. The most common sight along the way, heartening for people learning about the strains of the modern supply chain, was a steady stream of trucks.

They pulled in the driveway at about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, just ahead of a substantial snowfall.

That last hour, it was very hard to stay awake because wed been going for 28 hours at that point, said Muise.

Our sense of this whole adventure was that we were one day ahead of trouble pretty consistently, Nordman said.

Fate didnt catch up with them till they made it home, where they discovered a power surge had compromised the electrical system in their house. The wiring was straightened out Wednesday, and friends and family were helping to boost the supplies.

Look at what just got dropped off, Muise said excitedly, showing off two bags of flour, along with yeast.

Paulas a black belt in baking, said Nordman.

And hes no slouch at creating. During the long flight to Toronto, Nordman was captivated by a single strand of humanity, illuminated just so by the light from the window, clinging to the seat in front of him. The result is a nine-minute video he calls Hair Plane.

HAIR PLANE Onni Nordman 3.23.20 from Onni Nordman on Vimeo.

I think that hair is like a breakout star, he said.

The video is silly but its serious, too. I chanced on that theme of organic life or organic matter; were in a soup of it. And that hair is kind of a stand-in for any kind of virus or bacteria. A single hair can have a human presence.

It was an interesting exercise in minimalism.

The hair video was actually trimmed from its initial form.

He showed me the first version; it was 22 minutes, Muise said.

You know, we went there for art, and hes going to continue to do art of some kind.

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Cape Breton coronavirus artist happy to be home from Germany even in self-isolation - Cape Breton Post