‘1918 Another Pandemic’
Pandemic story told in art of mother, her late daughter
A creased page from an Old Farmer’s Almanac printed a century ago. A promising young man caught in an age-clouded daguerreotype. A tatting needle, lovingly preserved.
The items collected in the collages of Susan and Dana McHale represent a moment in an uncertain time, which are improbably shared by the motherdaughter pair and the men and women of a generation long gone.
“Collage is therapeutic,” said Susan McHale, a longtime Greenwich resident and artist. “You have to gather the pieces, see how they fit together.
“There’s a lot of psychology to it. You’re putting together a story, I guess.”
The story that Susan and Dana McHale put together will be on view in person and online in “1918 Another Pandemic/Almanac Collages,” an exhibition of several of their works at the Stamford Art Association’s Townhouse Gallery.
The intriguing show is open from noon to 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays and runs from Sept. 4 through Sept. 26, or by appointment at the gallery on Franklin Street. Their artwork is also on view at www.1918another pandemic.com.
Susan and Dana McHale had long bonded over shared art experiences. The pair studied the art of collage with artist Barbara Rothenberg at the Silvermine Guild Arts Center in New Canaan and took classes with Carol Dixon through the Greenwich Art Society.
Dana McHale, a Greenwich High School alumna, sold her handmade jewelry through Silvermine’s holiday shows and at The Mews of Greenwich, a senior living community where she volunteered. Most recently, she had collage works online at The Ely Center of Contemporary Art. Her past shows also include The Stamford Art Association, The Art Society of Old Greenwich and The Greenwich Arts Council.
A graduate of Trinity College, Susan McHale is a graphic designer who has been exhibiting locally, also at The Silvermine School of Art’s student exhibits. She has been a member of several art societies and attended both the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Royal College of Art in London.
“We always did things together,” Susan McHale said of her daughter. “We loved collage. It’s centering work. You’re thinking of things, collecting things, pasting things.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, Susan, her husband, Bart, and Dana, who lived at home in Greenwich with them, moved temporarily to Portland, Maine, where their daughters Violet and Annette live. A fourth daughter, Marguerite, was not too far away in Medford, Mass.
While in Maine, the mother and daughter looked for things to do, signing up to browse through the storied Fleafor-All market that was only open by appointment at the time. There, they found inspiration from small things they discovered that had belonged to those who had lived through the pandemic of 1918.
Reading from an Old Farmers’ Almanac – discussing it over dinner and during the seemingly endless hours of isolation during the lockdown — the mother and daughter found an exciting theme for many of the collages they were constructing to pass the time.
“We had to get through the year. You’ve got to do something,” Susan McHale said with a gentle laugh.
The exhibition features about 28 works that incorporate pieces from 1918 seen through modern eyes. Blending history with their own creativity, they conjured up an overlapping past and present.
“We tried to imagine the day-to-day lives of people during the period and to empathize with them,” Susan McHale said. “Some images are from our own or family photos, others from Google, but repurposed or changed, cut and pasted, painted over and recycled. Making collages helped us through the darkest days of the pandemic.”
The McHales had moved back to Greenwich by this summer. On July 22, Dana McHale, who had a history of epilepsy and special needs, had a major seizure, Susan McHale said. Her heart stopped and when her mother found her in the morning, she had passed away. She was 32.
While the family’s loss is still new and Dana is sorely missed, Susan McHale said she wanted to go on with the exhibition in tribute to her daughter’s talent and legacy and to their bond.
“It was just a fun project to do,” she said, pausing, “I think about our time together.
“We always had such a good time.”
For more information on the exhibit, visit stamfordartassociation.org. It is open from noon to 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays and runs from Sept. 4 through Sept. 26, or by appointment at the Stamford Art Association’s Townhouse Gallery located at 39 Franklin St. in Stamford. The works can also be viewed at www.1918another pandemic.com.