Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: Marta Grossi at My Modern Met

I love recent stories in which the discomfort of quarantine has spurred the isolated to adapt in interesting ways. Today’s article features an artist who found herself looking at her sink much more than usual.

Darcy Schild writes at Insider, “Marta Grossi is an artist and creative director who was quarantined in Milan, Italy, when she found an innovative way to make handwashing a magical experience. Grossi was running low on her traditional painting paper, so she started applying watercolors directly to the sink in her bathroom. …

“Grossi recalled the day she first picked up her watercolor brush at the bathroom sink …  after returning home from the grocery store, the one place (aside from pharmacies or to seek medical care) where citygoers in Milan were allowed to go at the beginning of lockdown orders. …

” ‘Everything felt apocalyptic in the city. I was hearing helicopters 24/7,’ said Grossi. ‘The alarm was extreme. I was a bit upset coming back from my errand, and I just wanted to wash everything off,’ she said.

“As she was washing her hands, she noticed her small watercolor tray sitting on the sink ledge, which she had used earlier in the day.

‘Suddenly, I don’t know what happened, but I started to paint,’ she said. ‘I started with branches and then filled in colors of a cherry blossoms. In that moment, I lost all track of time, and all my thoughts about what was going on washed away.’ …

“Grossi’s on-a-whim painting made her smile each time she returned to the sink to wash her hands, she said, so the concept stuck.

” ‘I started leaving the designs in the sink overnight and not washing [my hands] in that sink until the next day,’ Grossi said.

“The sink also became a canvas of sorts for Grossi. [She] began to run low on her supply of traditional drawing and painting paper, which she said she was saving to use for client projects and for pieces that were donated to a hospital. That’s when the apartment’s bathroom sink came into play.

” ‘It was about being able to use my hands to create something that was familiar, but also new to me,’ Grossi said of the sink watercolor method. …

“Grossi said it’s important to start with a dry surface or else the watercolor paints get hard to control, but that the challenge of a unique canvas made her artwork even more enjoyable.

” ‘It became my way to be present,’ she said. ‘These are the instruments I knew how to use to stay in the moment and to not let things that are out of my control affect me.’

“After admiring her designs for a day, Grossi turns on the faucet and rinses out the sink, then starts fresh with a new creation. Grossi said the act of filming her designs wash away has been soothing for her, as well as her growing fanbase.

” ‘The comments I got, even from strangers, were about what my next design would be, or telling me how the art was helping them,’ said Grossi. ‘This started as a necessity in a very bad moment and came therapeutic, not only for me, but for many others.’

Grossi says her sink designs are an example of temporary art, which, to her, reflects the importance of cherishing life in the moment. … By washing the designs away, it marks a new day, Grossi said, and ‘mirrors what’s going on in the real world — that there are beautiful moments even in the scary and unknown.’

“At the very least, the unexpected designs have been one way to make constant handwashing more enjoyable, Grossi said. ‘I translated this into something beautiful. If I wash my hands, I see flowers, I see the sea, I see animals. This changed my perspective on what was becoming so routine.’ …

“Grossi said she hopes to someday create an exhibit full of painted sinks inspired by her quarantine ritual because, in her opinion, sinks and the monotony of handwashing will ‘always be a symbol of what we all went through collectively’ during the pandemic.”

You really have to see these watercolors. Click here. And there’s more at the site My Modern Met, here.