Quarantine art for the elderly
Norwalk man’s project aims to help create connection
NORWALK — What was originally a way for Norwalk resident Peter Korzenik to connect with his mother, who resides in a nursing home, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic became a way for senior citizens around the country to remain engaged and hopeful.
Korzenik, 60, began the project, dubbed “Artmails,” last spring. Each day he would send his mother, Ursula Korzenik, a lengthy email with art, photos and video detailing the life and works of a different contemporary or modern artist.
Earlier in life, Ursula was a watercolor and collage artist. Now at 92, she lives in an assisted-care facility in Bloomfield and was unable to visit her three children or go out for months due to the pandemic.
To feel connected with his mother and offer a reprieve from the daily stress of the pandemic, Korzenik created the Artmails.
“I had to sift through so many bad YouTube videos,” Korzenik said. “I’d watch them through the end anyway and it helped me learn about an artist and get a sense what the particular artist was all about. From those YouTube videos I could provide some bio and get my own feelings.”
Korzenik, a nonprofit executive, said he’d spend
upward of three hours on each installment through reading articles, watching videos and researching the artists. The installments can last from 30 to 60 minutes, with reading material and videos on the artist.
The Artmails were sent out each day over a 10week period from April to June, Korzenik said. Featured artists included modern art tycoons Georgia O’Keeffe and Henri Matisse, and expressionists Jackson Pollock and Edvard Munch.
“After the 50th and final one I sent out last June, I thought to myself, ‘These Artmails can benefit more than a handful of people,” Korzenik said.
Korzenik researched retirement communities and eventually partnered with the Connecticut Leading Age chapter. A
nonprofit focused on aging services, Leading Age has more than 6,000 partners nationally focused on aiding in the aging process and bettering the lives of elderly people.
From there, Korzenik was connected to nine different Leading Age chapters around the country, including Oregon, South Carolina, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Each chapter now sends the Artmail installments to their various connections and organizations.
“I have no idea how many p(eople) are reading these,” Korzenik said. “One leading proponent is Leading Age Illinois. They have 500 member organizations in their network, retirement communities, assisted living facilities.”
Ursula Korzenik’s friend, Patricia Fahy, was among those who received the first round of Artmail episodes, and said she shares them with other friends not included on the email lists.
The Artmails have had a tangible impact on Fahy’s life the past few months, spurring her to visit new museums and delve further into artists mentioned in the Artmails of whom she had not previous heard.
“It’s an introduction to new artists as well as known artists,” Fahy said. “It’s been fun having them. When he’s not around he’s greatly missed. It’s like having your own private art tutor. It’s taking you away from yourself for a while, which is wonderful.”
In September, Artmails were brought to a new audience when Peter Korzenik and the quarantine project were featured in a Wall Street Journal article about readers’ response to the harm of pandemic isolation on the elderly population.
Following the article’s publication, Peter said he received a slew of emails from individuals and living facilities asking if they could receive the Artmails as well. In response, Peter set up a new Artmail recipient list, tweaked the Artmails themselves and sends one every Monday and Thursday.
One the recipients alerted to the project through the Wall Street Journal article, Jen Baldwin, lives in Washington state. Baldwin shares the Artmails with her 74-year-old mother in an assisted living memory care unit.
Baldwin’s mother, like Ursula Korzenik, was an artist earlier in life, specializing in graphic design and watercolors. For Baldwin, the Artmails are a way to aid her mother from a distance and said she connected with Peter’s reason behind starting the project.
“What I read was a desperate need or want to help the person you love through this incarceration of COVID and connect with them in something they loved,” Baldwin said.
Currently, the Artmails are watched by Baldwin’s mother and her caretaker, but Baldwin said there are discussions of bringing the project to a group setting once COVID-19 restrictions are eased in the state.
“I think it’s the act of being able to sit one-onone with another human being, even if it isn’t someone that you love, and leave the moment of stress and fear,” Baldwin said. “How she feels depends on the moment. For the time she’s doing that, she’s not anxious and not depressed, she’s enjoying and exploring this world she loves.”
Peter began sending out the biweekly Artmails to various organizations and recipients about three months ago and is halfway through the 50 planned Artmail installments. He does not plan to continue the project after the premade installments.
He said he receives no compensation for the project, and works on installments after his day job.
“Fifty was enough,” Peter said. “After the final one, I realized these are taking three hours to do and I didn’t have the time to do them anymore.”