Personal Narrative: Decorating My Mask

I had such a great time decorating my mask in class this week! To be honest, I was a little terrified going into class that I wouldn’t be able to decorate my mask to my own expectations without spending a few hours on it, or that I would not be able to express the concept that I had created in my mind for my mask. As I worked on it, however, my worries faded away and I felt at ease because the activity in itself was so relaxing. After I gathered the paint, glitter, and feathers that I felt so inclined to grab (especially the glitter!), I sat down with all the materials and let them inspire me to make the first paint stroke. Once I began painting, the creativity just flowed from my soul and out through my hands to create a piece of art that, surprisingly, was able to somewhat resemble the concept I had in mind going into class. While I am not an artist by any means, I felt proud of my work! After we finished decorating our masks and went around the room sharing our creations, I was stunned to see all of the creativity exposed. And not only did the masks look beautiful, what each classmate was able to represent with their mask, using only the small amount of materials we had at our disposal,
Daly (2005) even writes about the view some people have that nursing is more of an art than a science: “[they] support the idea of nursing as a caring and holistic art that sets itself in opposition to the rationality and reductive practices of scientific medicine and health care organization” (p. 60). While I believe there are aspects of both science and art in modern nursing, I feel it is important to understand that nurses do more than strictly medical tasks. Therefore, we should be prepared to get creative in every