Upended: This Nurse is an Artist
This March Fountain Street Gallery is presenting its core member exhibition, Upended, curated by Melissa Shaak and will run until March 28, 2021.
Exhibit Location: Piano Craft Gallery, 793 Tremont Street, Boston
Hours: Friday 6–8PM, Saturday + Sunday 12–5PM
Virtual Reception + Curator and Artist Talk: Sunday, March 21, 3PM
RSVP for the Virtual Reception + Curator and Artist Talk ➢
SIGN THE VIRTUAL GUEST BOOK ➢
Below core artist Patty deGrandpre writes about her experience being a nurse and making art during a pandemic.
This Nurse is an Artist
by Patty deGrandpre
I have been a nurse for 28 years, but an artist for longer, as long as I can remember. There are plenty of people who know I am both a nurse and an artist, but I have thought it best to keep the two worlds separate, as if there would be an implosion if the realms intersected. I did not want the “nurse thing” to distract from the “art thing.” If my day job is disclosed, at one of my art openings for instance, an opportunity is lost when the conversation morphs from discussing my artwork and creative passion to some health-care related matter. In contrast, I discuss my artistic endeavors without hesitation with my co-workers, as they give me unflagging support. I don’t consider it a distraction from my day job, but an extension of who I am. This has been an internal struggle for me as it is a contradictory standard.
With the pandemic, my activity has been limited to home, then work, then home, repeat. My work place has been in a state of upheaval as nurses were moved to COVID units and testing tents. Priority procedures were being done with minimal staff. Our staff was tired, discouraged, and anxious. I didn’t experience the phenomenon where I could go into my studio and lose myself in creation for days and days. On the few occasions when I did get to my studio, it was frustrating. I had nothing to draw creativity from. The vast catalogs of images and photographs I had accumulated over the years were no longer a source of inspiration, but rather a painful reminder that these moments in time were long gone and may never be experienced again.
Time moved along as it does. My role as a nurse became more intense and draining. I came to terms with the fact that this was going to be difficult and wasn’t going to change any time soon. I needed to try viewing things through a different lens. I started to notice and appreciate what surrounded me. Once I did, my daily work routine and mind set shifted. Suddenly gauze bandages, blades, syringes, sutures, and surgical trays all had creative potential. They were giving me a bit of a spark, albeit an ironic one. You will see these medical elements in my newest work. I am allowing my nurse and art worlds to collide. And there has been no implosion, just a bit of upending. What I once kept separate from my artwork has become a catalyst for it. This is my pandemic epiphany – I am embracing the whole. For now, at least, I can’t do one without the other. It makes me who I am. This artist is a nurse. This nurse is an artist.