The current Covid-19 health crisis has interrupted our daily lives and routines. It has presented a challenge to our financial, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Here is the good news; Art heals! The arts can allow you to share your unique experience of the coronavirus. Show us how you are feeling with a painting! Let us hear it in a song! Say it with a sonnet! Whatever your creative expression is, we want you to share it with us!!! Submit your art from your heart to #CITYheARTSNASHUA.

There is no question that we are living through an historic event.

The ways in which this coronavirus has uniquely impacted and transformed each of our individual lives and how we relate to one another is now infinite. Many of us are isolated from one another physically, but are actually more interconnected than before through this collective experience, and through new awareness of how every single action we take impacts others around us.

Some of us have lost loved ones, feel anxious or isolated, can no longer go to work or school for the time being. Some of us won’t be attending prom or graduation, are postponing weddings, unable to attend funerals in person. So many events and milestones canceled or on hold.

Lots of us haven’t been to a restaurant or bar, a concert or sporting event in a while. Some of us haven’t been able to see in person our friends or families, are trapped at home with someone who is abusive or unkind, are worried about our own health and the health of our loved ones. Some of us aren’t sure if we will be able to retire or how we will pay our mortgage. Some of us now fear returning to our workplaces or going to work as an essential employee because it represents an unsafe working environment. We are unable to hug someone. Maybe we are vowing to ourselves never to travel again. Some of us are juggling so much: working from home or out in our fields, and teaching our kids at home while trying to maintain a sane, safe and clean household.  

Some of us are still going to work because we have to, even if we might be scared. Some of us are going to work because we want to, because our sense of service surpasses our fear. Some of us have donated food, money or clothing to those in need, volunteered to help, sewed and donated dozens of fabric masks, checked on elderly neighbors, written to or called friends/ family we haven’t spoken to in years, finally tried that recipe we’ve always meant to try, done that daunting jigsaw or crossword puzzle, supported local businesses, connected more with our kids, parents or partner, perfected the drive-by birthday beep parade, held a virtual wedding, happy hour or reunion, worked in our gardens, mastered a new skill, sent a card, thanked an essential worker, worked out, read a book, slept in on a weekday, reached out with love and compassion and creativity.

With all this and more in mind, this is why we at City Arts Nashua are launching this new online, multiplatform community art project. We want to bring you and your neighbors, family, colleagues, and people you have not yet met but may, together with this set of hashtags we have created and that exist currently in the Nashua area and just beyond, where you express yourself, you share it and get your friends to express themselves, you pass it on and see where it goes. This is for all people, all ages, all levels of abilities, all cultures, all languages.

How is this experience changing you? What have you felt, what have you learned, what are you experiencing? Can you share, through any art form/medium you prefer, what you are feeling? You need not be an artist to participate! We simply are creating a way to share, connect and grow together.

Here’s what to do:

Keep these hashtags handy, please try to use all of them, and post appropriate content on any platform you wish. We happen to use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Feel free to use these or your own favorite social media platform.

Remember, the most challenging times create the most incredible art, please share yours!