Cultivate New Interests, be Creative and Lower Anxiety While Stuck at Home
Feeling creative, energized, fulfilled and optimistic during these uncertain days of the COIVD-19 pandemic, may seem impossible if not for hobbies and recreational pursuits.
As the community follows the stay-at-home directive, many residents have more time to indulge in their hobbies due to altered work schedules and a reduction in most social events.
Jena Webber, a massage therapist who lives in southwestern Winnebago County, has recently taken up growing organic vegetables in part to get ahead on her summer garden.
“I knew that some vegetables with ‘roots and shoots’ could be ‘recycled’ to grow new plants, so I watched YouTube videos online and discovered that there’s a whole host of vegetables that you can grow from existing vegetables,” she said.
“I was able to get seed potatoes, but regular grocery store organic potatoes should work for starting new plants. I took cut up sections of these potatoes with a few ‘eyes’ on them, dried them out and planted them.”
Webber also started onion plants from existing onion roots that she cultivated in water before planting in soil.
For her tomato and pumpkin plants, Webber ordered seeds online and started growing them outdoors in vintage washtubs.
“I chose the washtubs for the capacity and because I can move them to the garage if there’s frost. Many online seed stores were sold out and I think that’s because more people ordered seeds online this year since many gardening centers were closed due to COVID-19,” she said.
Webber recommends two YouTube videos as a tutorial on growing vegetables, “14 Store Bought Vegetables & Herbs You Can Regrow” and “15 Fastest Growing Survival Vegetables to Grow in a Crisis”.
“I’m not an expert gardener by any means,” Webber said. “I just watched the videos, learned from YouTube and planted the vegetables that looked interesting to grow. I can’t wait to see how these plants transfer to my summer garden.”
For Vicki Sherman of Machesney Park, picking up a brush and revisiting her hobby of painting has helped this pre-school teacher deal with the disappointment of a school year cut short.
“I really liked to sketch, draw and paint when I was a kid, but I got out of the habit until one of my Facebook friends started doing online tutorials on how to paint. I thought it looked like a fun thing to do and it definitely gives me something to enjoy and helps me relax,” she said.
Sherman mostly uses acrylic paints and choses either wood or canvas as her medium. She has completed five paintings to date.
“I actually re-did the first painting because I wasn’t 100 percent satisfied with how it turned out,” she said. “I discovered that my paintings turn out better if I watch the tutorial first, then watch it again, pausing the instructions as I work on my painting.
“The nice thing about painting is that if I’m not happy with how something turned out, I can scrap it or paint over it. It’s not a very expensive hobby, but it’s fun, relaxing and gives me a sense of accomplishment,” she added.
Colorful spools of plastic filament line the top of a closet in Shayne Aspaas’s Rockford home. What looks like raw materials for electrical wiring is actually the “ink” for his hobby of 3-D printing.
A self-described sci-fi and technology buff, Aspaas, who works as the parts & services manager at Cherry Valley Landscape Center, bought his first 3-D printer online and grew his hobby from there.
“Once I had the printer, I was able to get a really good friend of mine with CAD (computer aided design) experience, to help me learn programming and design. So I ended up with a new hobby and a new friend,” he said.
Aspaas now has seven 3-D printers on which can make a variety of projects. Basic projects on the printer are made when plastic filament “wire” is fed through the printer head, melted and then redeposited in very fine layers which build the object.
“I like making sci-fi projects, things that make people laugh and I love 3-D printing litho-panes where I can take a photograph and program that in to make a night light shade,” Aspaas said. “I also enjoy making functional objects, like replacement stove knobs and refrigerator handles.
“Having several printers means I can do projects of varying sizes, stability, height and volume. Some of the printers I can use to laser engrave different surfaces or I can burn images into wood rather than build the melted plastic,” he said.
An American flag made from wood strips and featuring words from the Pledge of Allegiance, hangs in Aspaas’s dining room. This project was created by using the reverse of 3-D printing.
“The flag was made on a CNC machine; which is basically how 3-D printing got started. The programs for CNC and 3-D are the same; but they’re opposite processes. A CNC machine removes material to create an engraving while a 3-D printer layers material to create an object,” he said.
It doesn’t matter if Aspaas is creating a gag gift for a friend or using his 3-D printer to make a replacement part for an appliance, he thoroughly enjoys the creative challenge of seeing a completed project. “This is a great hobby to get into,” he said. “It’s addictive!”
In addition to the personal satisfaction that hobbies provide, participating in leisure activities yields many mental health benefits.
“As we navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic, there are lots of uncertainties and unknowns,” said Kevin Polky founder/executive director of KP Counseling.
“We also have more time to fill due to reduced work hours and additional time spent at home. I think hobbies and leisure activities help us, especially at this time, to feel that we are doing something productive, constructive and enjoyable,” he said.
“Hobbies help us to focus,” Polky added. “They lower our anxiety, they increase our concentration and with more active hobbies like exercise; we can achieve both physical and mental health advantages.”
Webber sums it up, “People are taking risks in trying new hobbies and exploring different interests because, what do we have to lose? It’s very inexpensive to try growing an onion from a root or sketch on some paper. I think we’re going to look back on this time and see it as an opportunity to try new things and nurture our talents.”
The power of paint—graffiti and its pursuit of justice
Walking through Red Square the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, all I saw was art. To my left, drawn in vibrant chalk, was the Ukrainian flag accompanied by the words, Slava Ukrayini (Glory to Ukraine) and Heroyam Slava (Glory to Heroes). To my right, “Stand with Ukraine” was written on the bricks. While the activists who chalked in Red Square may not consider themselves graffiti artists, they are joined by thousands of street artists around the world who use their art to speak out against injustice, unify communities, and bring about change.
Though graffiti and street art have a few semantic differences , the main distinction lies in the culture and context surrounding them. Since its resurgence in the 1970s, the African American community has used graffiti to express their history of suffering and resilience. Gradually, as commissioned murals entered the field, city officials sought to distinguish what they considered illegal, messy, and rebellious “graffiti” from legal, aesthetic, and respectable “street art.” Further distinctions associate tagging—artist signatures—and words with graffiti, and murals and images with street art. As such, “graffiti” typically has a negative connotation, but many justice-driven artists prefer to use both terms interchangeably. Their art involves the historical and word-based characteristics of graffiti and the aesthetic and image-based characteristics of street art.
Graffiti is an expression of hope, a demand for justice, and a representation of community solidarity. It allows those who need their voices heard the most to express themselves. Ismael Illescas, a graffiti artist in LA, put it this way : “Where these [people] are marginalized, ostracized, and invisibilized, graffiti is a way for them to become visible.”
The problem is, while social justice graffiti has the power to amplify marginalized voices, surrounding structures, beliefs, and policies suppress and manipulate them. In this highly racialized and increasingly popular business, street art often maintains a double standard for its artists.
Cities like Philadelphia and Los Angeles have recognized the benefits of public art and have begun commissioning murals in sanctioned locations. Artists have the liberty to express themselves and legally display their art publicly. However, these displays are often intended for city beautification rather than social justice, and the result is a colorful mural without the vital component of policy change. And sometimes, commissioned “justice-oriented” street art is more performative than anything else.
D.C. Mayor Bowser’s BLM mural offers one example. While the large yellow letters painted on 16th street reading “Black Lives Matter” may appear appropriate at a distance, DC’s BLM Chapter tweeted they’re not impressed. Despite Bowser’s mural, she has taken no action in enacting any of their policy demands, particularly defunding the police. While graffiti can be a tool for justice, it can also be a colorful diversion from it.
And depending on how and where commissioned street art is displayed, this beautification can promote the gentrification of neighborhoods because large murals increase property values. As cities try to deter unwanted graffiti through commissioned murals and businesses hop on the bandwagon to make their buildings “ hip ,” street art significantly raises their financial value. When Banksy, a world-renowned graffiti artist, entered the scene in Wynwood, Miami, the neighborhood’s developer Goldman Properties struck gold—one of their properties, among others, reportedly sold for over $50 million. Meanwhile, local renters and residents have had to leave the area due to rising prices.
Additionally, while street art is a diverse field, white artists like Banksy and Shepard Fairy maintain the spotlight. Banksy’s art is known for its social commentary, bringing attention to homelessness , systemic racism , and more. He has arguably become the most prominent artist in the world, making over $20 million a year. However, while Banksy makes money for his commentary, artists with critical insight and experience of the issue themselves don’t receive the same attention.
Gabriel Villa was commissioned to paint a mural in Bridgeport, an ethnically diverse and working-class neighborhood in Chicago. Using the opportunity to stand against over-policing in his community, he spray painted three security cameras, a police badge, a deer head, and a skull. Not a week passed before his work was painted over by government-sanctioned Graffiti Blasters. The ward’s alderman claimed Villa’s art was undesirable because it referenced “gang imagery and violence.” Villa’s story represents a reality for many artists: If those in power disapprove of their message, which is often the reason for the artwork in the first place, artists are silenced.
People of color are also more likely to be reprimanded for their art, with or without legal approval. While popular Detroit artist Sheefy McFly was working on his mural commissioned by the city, he was approached by police , who mistook him as a vandal. When McFly moved toward his city-issued permit, the police viewed it as resisting arrest and detained him for a day before releasing him. McFly’s experience symbolizes the way police—and society as a whole—view graffiti from artists of color: vandalism, painted by criminals.
Preserving the communal benefits of graffiti in the face of neighborhoods, governments, and systems that mistreat artists and their art is undoubtedly difficult. Some neighborhoods are considering elevating the artists within their communities rather than hiring acclaimed artists from elsewhere. Local painters bring with them the community’s culture, history, voice, and style. By prioritizing these unique, community-based voices over highly recognized artists, neighborhoods highlight the stories, statements, and demands of the local residents. The fear of gentrification still remains, but avoiding six-figure murals from famous artists may help mitigate the problem.
Another possible solution is opening blank spaces around the city where artists can freely create without a permit. This removes the monetary appeal and allows artists to create candidly, which encourages authentic, justice-motivated art. Similar to murals, designated blank spaces may also centralize graffiti and discourage artist-city conflicts in areas where it is unwanted. Of course, this solution is not infallible, either. Compensation for work done is important, and removing monetary incentive may make street art less accessible to lower-income artists.
Perhaps the most important step moving forward is reframing how we—individuals, businesses, police, and government—view graffiti. So long as graffiti is stigmatized, it will continue to be discounted, removed, and painted over with performative “authorized” art. So long as the system criminalizes and excludes diverse artists, those who need their voices heard the most will be silenced. We need to give power to local communities—let’s start by treating graffiti as an art form, a mode of public expression, and a tool to challenge existing realities of oppression.
Ella Bruno
Ella Bruno is a student at Georgetown University studying Justice and Peace. She loves writing novels, drinking hot chocolate, and backpacking in the Colorado mountains.
