Self and Sculptural Transformations: Coping, Burnout, Restoration, Dis/integrated, Dis/comfort, Containment, and Surviving During the 2020 Pandemic

Abstract

This visual essay explores how one individual with mental health disorders navigated the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the Coronavirus pandemic during the summer of 2020. Using feminist disability studies as a form of inquiry, the author applies a combination of visual and narrative arts-based methods to explore various coping strategies employed during the shelter-in-place mandate. Throughout this essay, the author describes the creative process and subsequent transformations that occurred while working through feelings of loneliness, guilt, fear, helplessness, aimlessness, anger, disappointment, and most prominently the feeling of being trapped. This essay concludes with recognition of the artistic process that informs the product, finding value in both, while simultaneously encouraging individuals to explore this type of self-reflective creative practice.