Two weeks into the shutdown due to the COVID19 pandemic, after the onset of adrenalin, fear and wholesale change had begun to feel more familiar, many people started to experience grief for a life that was familiar and nourishing. At the same time, here in the Midwest, spring was awakening, accompanied by birdsong and even more robust growth than usual. Charting Spring: Gardens, Grief + Hankies in the time of COVID19 explores the profound duality of grief and spring’s unrestrained new life that coexisted during the Pandemic. Hankies for grief, and drawings on hankies that chart the progress of spring in my own lockdown garden, —a portrait of coping tools, at hand.
As the Pandemic continued through summer and into fall, this series continued with Charting Summer and Charting Fall. Through drawing with ink on fabrics I printed and painted by hand, these pieces recorded the progress of summer, and then fall, in my garden. Unlike the hankies series, these pieces are larger, with additional stitching. Another major project was the Dreaming Quilts Series. You can read about that in a previous post.
2020 was a difficult year to write about. It was a year unlike I’ve ever seen for reasons that everyone is entirely too familiar with: the deep worries and uncertainty from the pandemic and politics, as well as the typical losses due to ordinary living, Derecho storm and sad developments in the lives of loved ones. But it has been a year of surprising learning experiences and accomplishments as well. I have been one of the lucky ones, and for all of that I am grateful, ever mindful that others have not had this outcome.
Ironically, here was my annual Creativity Jumpstarts the Day plan for the year, written a year ago in January 2020:
- Be Outdoors as Much as Possible
- STAYCATION Residency
- PERSIST! DESPITE!
- Devise the Plan for Making Art to the End-line
- Do it while you can
- Drawing
- People/Family Connections
- Mentor
- Give Back
- Let go: e.g. SDA
- Handwork
- Read More/Screen less
- Music
- Relax/Cook
In retrospect, it’s strange to see how much of these activities the pandemic required of us, and if you will, made possible. Not accounted for, though, was the underlying stress and worry. Who knew that going outside would be a major coping strategy, lucky as we were here in the Midwest with opportunities? Or that giving back would be to nonprofits and local retailers? A lesson there. Be well, everyone.
