MOUNT HEALTHY, Ohio — A former teacher is now an artist after she turned items popular during the pandemic into purses.
Toilet paper, face masks, vaccines, medicines and cicadas are all signs of the times we are living in, and all things that Heather Boersma turned into art.
She put COVID into artistic framed purses, each marking a different trend happening during the pandemic, but she said there’s a much deeper meaning.
“It’s not just a superficia-like purses are fun fashion — more like purses as things we value. We carry the things we value the most,” said Boersma.
The former elementary school teacher helped students create, too, but she said things took a much more serious turn when her mom got sick.
“My sister and I, we had to drive down to put her in the hospital. It was so serious, and she ended up getting long-haul COVID symptoms,” said Boersma.
She left her job to help take care of her mom, and she kept creating. She put how she felt into art.
“I think that we’ve all been through so much and sometimes you don’t even realize it until you have somebody an artist can share out what they’ve been through,” said Boersma.
She took it all on the road. She came from Michigan to Cincinnati to show the pandemic purses in a traveling art show. It’s a show she hopes might just inspire someone else.
“I’m hoping that when people come, they might see some different things that they can relate to that have helped them make it through COVID as well,” said Boersma.
