KATHLEEN FOGEL-RICHMOND,
MA, LMFT, ATR-BC

As an art therapist, I strive to help others use art to heal and also understand and make adaptive changes in their lives. My own art making is central to exploring my feelings and understanding my world. Firstly, the process itself of making art is relaxing and meditative. It allows me to clear my mind from stressors while immersing myself only in color choices or strokes on a canvas or shapes emerging out of clay. Secondly, the image content specifically provides a focus for contemplation and exploration through symbolic representation of feelings, experiences or reactions.

Pandemic Cape
(Surgical & kn 95 masks,
Covid-19 at-home tests, glue; 5' 2" x 8' 10") 

As mask wearing became a staple of life during the Covid-19 pandemic, I began recycling the used disposable masks from my household by gluing them together to create a fabric. Building this patchwork of mask fabric became a weekly process and ritual which marked & documented time as the days, weeks & years passed. Over time I reflected that the piece would further take shape & be finished once the pandemic ended. In spring of 2023, mask wearing in my low-risk household & workplace dwindled to very infrequent. While the ongoing rise & fall of evolving variants continues as a less urgent public emergency, mostly life continues to return to a pre-pandemic normal with only episodic precautions needed for most. The fabric eventually took the shape of a cape which represents symbolically many types of garments from royalty to liturgical to superhero fashion. For me this Pandemic Cape metaphorically represents the heavily-weighted oppressiveness of enduing years of isolation as a symbolic costume created from the detritus of covid-19. While evolving variants continue, for now the piece has ended after taking shape decorated with at-home disposable tests.