My 2020 and 2021 collages, “Sunrise in the Preserve” and “Sunrise near Bellacina” are currently showing in the Venice (Florida) Art Center’s new “Near and Far” show (running now through February 11, 2022). The two works together in a series of three (including “Sunrise on the Bay”) tell the story about how creating art during the confines of the covid19 pandemic helped me maintain and, possibly, strengthened my mental – social and emotional – health.
Isolated in the first many months of the pandemic in 2020, I found solace in my small studio. The unassuming, demure space provides me with plenty – the secure comfort I desire for my creating. Ever since I was a little kid, I have always enjoyed the confines of small, big-enough-for-only-me spaces. The enclosed spandrel (the space underneath the stairs leading up to the second floor of our house) was my indoor playhouse. Every morning after breakfast, I couldn’t wait to play under the stairs with my dolls, in my own private, cozy representation of my family’s kitchen, complete with a 1950’s toddler sized white metal kitchen sink, stove and refrigerator. It was the safe sanctuary that my natural introversion craved.
Like the enclosed spandrel, my two, small, big-enough-for-only-me studio spaces (one in upstate NY and the other in Venice, Florida) provide me with the safe and secure calm I desire for my creative focus. In this soothing space, I relax and, along with my collage practice, destress. It was in my Venice studio where I “got through” the early pandemic months (and the later ones too) with peace and relaxation.
Creating collage – the cutting and securing paper or fabric to a ridged surface – helps me manage my mental wellbeing. Scissors and X-Acto knives (slim, small knives with similarly slim razor blades for cutting my materials) are, for me, therapeutic. The concentration and attention required to accurately slice fabric or paper flows through my body. It calms my arms, hands and fingers down into a focused peacefulness. Again, the concentrated practice allows me to exhale my stress and tension.
Collage also satisfies my desire for a challenge. It provides me another way to take care of my mental health. Stimulating our brain with challenges and problem solving helps to improve our mindset. This helps to make us feel more positive about the future. It helps to build confidence and gives us something to focus on. Problem solving takes our minds off the things that cause anxiety. Creating a picture that represents a story with Impressionistic-like simplicity is my challenge and goal. But the pandemic in early 2020, created an additional challenge. The challenge of trying to find materials needed for my collaging (remember, at first, stores closed completely)!
One of the reasons I made pictures of a sunrise was because the only ridged surface I had at the time to build my collages on was a piece of florescent orange cardboard leftover from another project (I totally can’t remember what that was)! The bright orange became the perfect background to represent the dramatic streaks and peaks of the morning’s rising sunlight. Another challenge was obtaining colored paper to cut and collage the sky and foreground. Again, the only thing I had on hand were magazines. Even though magazines are not the best choice when considering a picture’s longevity and its archivalness, the “Venice Magazine” about Gulf Coast living, provided me with a broad selection of colors; the heavier cover paper becoming my favorite choice to weave into my sunrise representations.
Many artists relate their practice to helping them with strengthen their mental health. During the scariest early days and months of the pandemic, my “art saved me” (as it often does). It provided me a way to escape from the worries of what the virus. My secure and safe studio gave me focus. It illuminated a silver lining to my isolation – that of creating three related collages. Even the show’s opening night helped me grow my social health. My husband and I met another artist and his wife who also live in Venice. The four of us closed the reception down. We were the last to leave. We enjoyed a conversation of getting to know each other, exchanging numbers and promises to get together again.
How about you? Did/do you find solace during the pandemic creating art and or crafts? How does art or craft making affect your mental health? Have you noticed ways art helps to strengthen your social and emotional health? I would love to hear from you in the “Leave a Reply” below.
