Coping with the COVID-19 Quarantine Through a Creative Lens

The global COVID-19  pandemic has affected everyone on both physical and emotional levels. We polled our team of Creative Arts Therapists from The Art Therapy Project and The Art Therapy Practice to see how they are creatively coping with social distancing, self isolation, and this new era of uncertainty through a lens of creativity, mindfulness, and self care.

Part 1: Creativity:

As clinicians who utilize the creative arts as both personal and professional coping tools, our therapists emphasize the value of nurturing one’s artistic craft especially during times of crisis--no matter how simple or elaborate the process or product is. Gemma Burgio, ATR-BC LCAT shares how she makes a point of “making time to do something somewhat creative for myself (I made a single origami crane the other day and it felt like a huge accomplishment).” She adds, “I think it is important for us all to stay connected to the creative process and to each other in a time like this, where isolation can lead to extreme anxiety and possibly hopelessness about the state of the world. It is important to make tangible things with our hands right now, to feel as if time is not being taken away from us, but that we are now thrust into a space that may lend more opportunity for self-sufficiency and communal connection through the arts.”  

Valeria Koutmina, MPS, ART-BC, LCAT is also working on creatively processing current events using tangible media like collage or knitting. She reflects, “Collage is a medium I have been working with to explore ideas of creation, destruction/fragmentation, and faith in integrative potentials.” Indeed, this medium requires problem solving skills to figure out how to deconstruct an existing composition and then piece together something new. It can be enormously satisfying to alter an existing image and make it one’s own through deductive choices. The act of cutting, ripping, and tearing with one’s hands can also provide a kinesthetic release. Here Sharon Itkoff Nacache ATR-BC LCAT  has included an example of collage using cut and torn textured paper and images of circles--chosen for their containing quality during this highly stressful time.  

With knitting, the repetitive hand motions create an “active reward activity” in which the mind and body work together to focus on a specific task. This can have a calming, meditative effect. Both collage and knitting require minimal materials that many people already have at home--yarn, knitting needles, magazines, old children’s books, glue, paper, and scissors--making them easily accessible creative outlets. See for yourself!

Stay tuned for part 2 and 3 of Coping with the Covid-19 Quarantine Through a Creative Lens.