JACKSON, Mich. — Around the world, the coronavirus has sent emergency medical and health care workers into overdrive, but it has also meant work for some curators and museums tracking the events of the crisis, even as it's happening.
During this time, museums say art can be anything from drawings to paintings to even stories about what you're experiencing during this time. They want to capture everything that's going on and save it for future generations.
Working on her master's degree in fine art from home, artist Jodie Chilcote is turning a class project into a piece of history, documenting the coronavirus pandemic.
"I made strawberries, they've kind of been my little mascot almost for my art career and I just placed them around town in places that people frequent often here in Spring Arbor and then posted on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter clues of where they would be," Chilcote said.
She crafted the strawberries and placed them around town to bring hope to others during this uncertain time.
"I thought this fit really well with appreciating where we are and not forgetting the important things. That's why I put some of the strawberries in places like the parks where people can really use or access as much or like our Frosty Boy ice cream shop here in town and just reminding people one day we will be able to use these again," she said.
The Ella Sharp Museum of Art and History in Jackson is using the pandemic to give artists the opportunity to be historians.
"This is kind of the exact thing that we have a responsibility as historians to record how people are going through this because it's so universal. Everyone is experiencing it. Everyone's experiences are unique," said Harrison Marcott, curator of collections at the museum.
The museum is collecting everything from journal entries to poetry, paintings, music and photos, whatever it takes to tell the story of what Jackson residents were doing during the pandemic.
"Any way that people can show their creativity and also kind of heal from that, I think is really important right now," said Rachel Veramay, curator of exhibits at the museum. "This is definitely open to all forms of art no matter how you want to describe that yourself."
The Ella Sharp Museum will continue to stay closed while the stay-home order is in place.
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