COMFORT IN THE TIME OF COVID-19

WILMA BULKIN SIEGEL, M.D.

At the beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic in March 2020, I remember my severe fear of death and major feeling of lack of power because I had no knowledge. I had always felt “Knowledge is Power”.

The “lockdown” immediately put us into isolation, and humans are social beings. My friends too had a panic state with fear. I realized that we were not isolated having the computer and cellphone at hand and so we were beings using modern technology to reach out to others to diminish our isolation.

Doing art has always been therapeutic to take away chaos in thought, and to give me purpose and order.

My first work done was a collage about the corona virus itself. I painted flowers and friends and then I doodled on my iPhone with a children’s application “Draw 4 free”.

March 28, 2020 is the first of this series in which I painted the flowers and a positive word. I have felt education is most profound for memory when the word and picture are together- namely, narrative and visual. The word had to be a positive message and flowers are a message of creativity sexual organs for reproduction.

Covid-19 was a threat of possible extinction of the human being and so this combination of a positive image and positive word was a way for me to look at the world joy rather than fear.

I decided to play a game with my friends and send this message of hope and positivity that would bring comfort to friends and acquaintances which was doing it for me and share this positive silent voice in the morning to help to face the day, days, weeks and year.

So, I began my “game”. It grew close to 100 people that I sent the images to help them to begin the day. My technique was drawing with my finger on the screen the entire face of the iPhone in the beginning. I later switched to my Mini iPad to do the screen painting. Every morning I would send out close to 100 messages to people who depended on the positive message. I learned that some sent out the images to other friends who wanted them. Finally in February 2021 I fell and had an injury. With pain I decided I could not do this every day, so I ended my game. Many wrote to me disappointed. They missed the positive thought of the day.

I had had the idea to make an art quilt of the images when we were once out of the Pandemic, calling it “Comfort in the Time of Covid--19 “.

I had designed two art quilts in the past with a quilter but in Florida I did not know quilters. I investigated via the internet and found several quilt shops near my studio. One of the top shops, “Quilt a Bit” in Lake Worth, Florida was kind enough to refer me to a quilter, Eila Granfors.

I met Eila at the quilt shop and designed the quilt immediately like painting. The palette was the range of materials that we chose first. I learned the quilting is done by a design machine with many patterns. I chose a vine pattern which corresponded to the flowers and leaves of the drawings and background fabric. I had the images printed on pieces of white handkerchief material. The most difficult was to get the embroidery done to spell out “Comfort in the Time of Covid-19”. The embroiderer, Krista Waddell, had had a hand injury and we had to wait for her recovery. Finally, the quilt was completed. I thank that group for their help and honor their work ethic.

Quilters are craft artists with a heart!