Recording & Honoring
By Antoinette Winters | March 23, 2021
Individually, or in combination, words have the power to evoke a range of human emotions: joy, humor, fear, grief, hope, love… That power, and how our interpretation of words, texts, and phrases changes according to our circumstances interests me.
Antoinette Winters In the time of covid 2020
In the time of covid was conceived during the initial months of our quarantine. Much like everyone else, I was consumed by the news. I read and listened to anything that might inform me. The language—and its daily repetition—took hold. I made lists of phrases and words. During the summer months I organized and edited them, focusing primarily on the language and events of the initial three months of the pandemic. The use of a long accordion book provided a means of including the extensive text while also emphasizing the length of the pandemic (on-going today). All the other choices—color, font style and size, and book cover—happened as it does with any artistic venture through thought, experimentation, and serendipity.
Antoinette Winters, In the time of covid, detail
Around the time I began stenciling the text—a slow, laborious process—I learned of my brother’s illness. It was not Covid, but it was equally serious, and it progressed more rapidly than expected. He passed away in early December. During that time, the act of stenciling took on greater significance as the words I had chosen to define a world-wide situation now resonated on a highly personal level; some days a single word or cluster of words emulated my own confusion, fear, and grief. The book became an opportunity to record and honor, on both a personal and global level, our experience in the time of Covid.
Antoinette Winters, In the time of covid, detail
Copyright © 2021 Antoinette Winters
Antoinette Winters’ drawings, paintings, and installations have been presented in numerous museum, university, and gallery venues in New England, including: Brickbottom Gallery; Fuller Craft Museum; Brattleboro Museum & Art Center; Carole Calo Gallery, Stonehill College; Beard & Weil Galleries, Wheaton College; Art Complex Museum, Duxbury; Schick Art Gallery, Skidmore College; Mazmanian Gallery, Framingham State University; Jewett Art Gallery, Wellesley College; University of Maine Museum of Art; The Kingston Gallery, Boston; Danforth Museum of Art; Mills Gallery, Boston; and the Concord Art Association. Her work is included in the corporate collections of Meditech, MA, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NYC, and The Corporate Program at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, MA. She is a member of, and maintains a studio at, the Waltham Mills Artist Complex, Waltham, MA. Winter is a member of the Waltham Mills Artist Association and maintains a studio at 144 Moody Street, Waltham, MA.
I find this piece so emotional in its spare and direct presentation. The length of the piece connects so beautifully with the length of time we have all dealt with this pandemic.
Very moving- thank you for sharing Antoinette!!