We recently connected with Katie Hartley and have shared our conversation below.

Katie, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

During the Covid pandemic, I was working as a nurse in Washington, DC while simultaneously earning my Master of Fine Arts from American University. When I came into the program, I was creating abstract drawings and paintings, but in my second year, my experiences as a nurse began to integrate into my practice.

At the colonoscopy center where I worked, we didn’t have access to traditional N95s, so we wore half-face respirators (often used with spray painting). One day I took a selfie of the huge mask and my face shield to send to my family, with a thumbs up. In the studio at AU, I looked at the picture and saw a new kind of self portrait. For a while I contemplated it – playing with the coloring in photoshop and even building a large version of the mask out of wood. In a critique with my cohort, someone said, “You don’t need to do anything to it; the image is powerful as it is.” And together we wondered: did other people have pictures like mine?

I texted friends and coworkers. Immediately, I received emotional selfies from bathroom mirrors in the hospital, some with rashes across noses and cheeks from the masks, and even tears streaming down faces… other people were documenting their journey too.

I expanded my search, posting on Facebook and Instagram, calling for selfies from healthcare workers and using my own picture as an example. On instagram, the post was picked up by a healthcare meme account called @codebluememes, who shared it in their story. It went viral. I received hundreds of messages from the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia on both social media accounts. The collection, titled “In Our Eyes,” grew to over 400 images.

I never could have predicted the enormity of this project or its impact. It ultimately became a documentation project that captured a moment in history. So much of the work done by healthcare workers during the pandemic couldn’t be photographed or preserved due to patient confidentiality, and even in our selfies, our faces are mostly obscured. But in each photograph, we spoke our horror, fear, uncertainty, exhaustion, camaraderie, and even humor, through our eyes.

The most meaningful part of this project was the sense of connection and community that engulfed me. With every message, text, or comment, strangers shared their stories with me, some incredibly intimate and vulnerable. I talked openly with people I’ve never met, sometimes across the world, bonded by a traumatic experience that we all understood. Some people thanked me for making them feel seen, but I felt honored to know their story.

Twenty-three photographs from the collection have been selected as part of a group exhibition called “Viral Integration” at the University of California Irvine in the Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences Hall, which will be permanently installed this year. I also plan to create a lasting version of the collection in a book.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a visual artist, nurse, teacher, and illustrator from Great Falls, VA. I’ve lived in DC, Boston, Philly, Baltimore, and now live in Maryland with my golden retriever, Ginger. I attended Boston College for my undergraduate degree in nursing, then studied studio art at the graduate level at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and American University, where I earned my MFA in Studio Art. I’m fortunate to have exhibited my work in DC, MD, VA, PA, NY, and CA.
Growing up, I was always drawing. I liked the escape of it; how the world around me melted away and everything went silent as I studied the details of a chair or a car or a book cover or a lamp or a sleeping man at the airport. As I’ve gotten older, I now know this was a response to feeling anxious or nervous and I needed to ground myself – an early act of mindfulness.

In high school, I took oil painting classes at the Yellow Barn Studio in Glen Echo, MD, learning plein air and the foundations of observational fine art, which I loved. In college and in my graduate studies, however, I really shook off that traditional training, moving abstract. It wasn’t until I started my post-bacc program at PAFA, though, that I really immersed myself in other ways of thinking and playing as an artist. It was the first time I had a real studio all to myself, a supportive art community, and feedback from professional artists. I explored sculpture, assemblage, photography, performance, and writing, feeling safe to try everything.

By the time the Covid pandemic hit, I started my MFA at American. The state of the world definitely impacted my studio experience, and despite my incredible cohort and faculty, the isolation and zoom critiques yielded a completely different graduate art experience, and my art practice changed with it. Although I did experiment with wood sculpture and collage, my thesis became less about playing with materiality and more about research into healthcare culture and mental health during the pandemic, especially in nursing. I created a large-scale self-portrait collage called “Burnt Out” and created a photograph collection called “In Our Eyes” as a result.

Today, my daily art practice has returned to the escapist, meditative, necessary drawing that I began with as a kid, with an abstract twist. Like I assume many people around me, I’m still processing the pandemic and its impact on my mental health, social life, and work life. These small, accessible, colorful drawings are my journal entries as I work through these things. I’ve also begun defining my goals as an artist for myself (with a lot of journaling), and for now, it’s less about being recognized for my work and more about making what I need to make. And as I begin my first experiences in teaching art at the community level, I couldn’t be more excited.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding part of being an artist for me is in finding community, particularly with other artists. Making art can feel incredibly isolating. Sometimes when I’m creating in a room by myself, I feel aimless, like “what’s the point?” I crave that connection, and crave even more the feeling of being understood by my fellow artists. It doesn’t even matter what I’m making – it’s more about the conversation and connection that comes from it.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

It took me a while to realize that art doesn’t have to be pretty. Somewhere along the way, I learned that for art to be received well, it needed to be attractive. But that became problematic when I tried to make a painting while I was frustrated or stressed and the work would turn out messy, dark, or odd looking. I remember in college trying to paint outside near the athletic building, and I was feeling particularly low. My painting came out as this muddy, brownish-orange mess. I felt like I had failed and that it wasn’t even a real piece of art. I threw it away. But slowly over the years, by looking at other artists in person and on social media, I’ve seen them bravely sharing work that I would have dismissed. And their work wasn’t ugly to me at all – it felt honest, vulnerable, and fascinating. That’s why it’s so important to share whatever it is you are making – you don’t know who will resonate with it or learn something from it. Learning from these other artists has been given me permission to create whatever feels true to me, which is a real gift that these artists had no idea they were giving me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.katiehartleyart.com
• Instagram: @khart_art
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiehartley-bsn-rn-mfa