E-onji-noojimoyin Gidakiiminaang (Anishinaabemowin)

My name is Gloria C Swain, and I'm an artist living and working out of Toronto. It was not easy coming to terms with the fact that the worst was yet to come. But art is what comforted me. Art has always been a form of expression and healing for me. Before the lockdowns, I was busy with shows in Toronto, Montreal, and Southern Manitoba.

COVID-19 changed everything. In quarantine, I reminded myself of the importance of self-care, especially my mental health. With lockdowns and closures of art spaces, my one bedroom apartment transformed into an art space. I spent hours drawing, painting, taking self-portraits, and trying to find the inner strength to move forward. Losing friends and not being able to see my grandchildren and losing the freedom to take a walk along the waters near my apartment since the pandemic was challenging.

And living alone as an older person was just a reminder that left me living in fear of something happening and having no one check up on me. Months of loneliness and stress eating impacted my physical and mental health. It became clear to me that lifting myself out of this would take effort, double mask and in isolation is how I was surviving the pandemic and being able to create art was part of that healing journey.

I think back to normal is a long time coming. After all the world has been through with COVID-19. Art continues to be a vehicle to connect humanity. The work, two 30 x 40 canvases that I'm showing in this exhibit reflects how nature helps heal the body, mind, and spirit. The title Healing Power of Nature and, is a mixed media artwork that uses acrylic paints, spray paint, modeling paste, dry flowers, and earth.

I use varnish to secure the work in place because the pieces are available for gentle touch from the viewers. I like for people to embrace my work through touch and also through, by looking at it and meditating to what they see, the colors, and how it makes them feel. As a child facing trauma that I was afraid to speak about meant that walking barefoot through soft, wet grass, kissing the bottom of my feet was all the therapy I needed.

And today, as an older Black woman artist struggling to survive physically, mentally, in dealing with so much pandemic related loss and grief, I find myself walking in the rain without an umbrella. Allowin' the rain drops to kiss my cheeks or remove the salt from the tears. That refreshes my energy. Water has always been a natural way to heal from pain and grief.

Water is life.