I made this piece of art when I was at a rough point in my student nursing career. I was placed in an extremely difficult placement where at times I felt that the cons were outweighing the pros. I could barely get myself out of bed in the morning in order to get myself to clinical because I was constantly wondering “what is the point o\f it all?” On top of this, I was suffering from nursing student burnout after the hardest semester of my schooling. I was lost, scared, and unsure if I even wanted to continue with my nursing career. Then one day at my clinical placement I had a woman who saw I was nervous about doing a procedure for the first time. I didn’t tell her it was my first time; it felt like she just knew. She said how excited she was to be my first patient and showed me nothing but kindness. It was from this moment on that my views started to change. I started noticing all the small little things in my placement like the laughs between families or the giddy conversations between strangers that made me want to get out of bed and go to work. Those negative thoughts were still there, and I still did have my bad days, like when clients would yell at me over not having the vaccine they wanted or when they would become sick; but I slowly learned to take the bad with the good.
This is what my painting Clashing represents to me. It is a dirty acrylic pour that has light colours on the left side and dark on the right as they clash and meet in the middle. While making this piece I remember banging the canvas of my dining room table in order to give it the dramatic harsh smudges that brought the colours together. Not only did this action give the painting the look I wanted it to have, but was also was therapeutic in a way. I felt so stuck in this placement and being able to use these emotions to create this piece was an amazing stress reliever. I was so upset for so long that being able to put my feelings so deeply into an art piece felt really good. There will always be positives and there will always be negatives in nursing school placements but sometimes you have to step back and reflect on how the two come together to make a beautiful outcome of learning and personal development.
I made this piece of art when I was at a rough point in my student nursing career. I was placed in an extremely difficult placement where at times I felt that the cons were outweighing the pros. I could barely get myself out of bed in the morning in order to get myself to clinical because I was constantly wondering “what is the point of it all?” On top of this, I was suffering from nursing student burnout after the hardest semester of my schooling. I was lost, scared, and unsure if I even wanted to continue with my nursing career.
Then one day at my clinical placement I had a woman who saw I was nervous about doing a procedure for the first time. I didn’t tell her it was my first time; it felt like she just knew. She said how excited she was to be my first patient and showed me nothing but kindness. It was from this moment on that my views started to change. I started noticing all the small little things in my placement like the laughs between families or the giddy conversations between strangers that made me want to get out of bed and go to work. Those negative thoughts were still there, and I still did have my bad days, like when clients would yell at me over not having the vaccine they wanted or when they would become sick; but I slowly learned to take the bad with the good. This is what my painting Clashing represents to me. It is a dirty acrylic pour that has light colours on the left side and dark on the right as they clash and meet in the middle. While making this piece I remember banging the canvas of my dining room table in order to give it the dramatic harsh smudges that brought the colours together. Not only did this action give the painting the look I wanted it to have, but was also was therapeutic in a way. I felt so stuck in this placement and being able to use these emotions to create this piece was an amazing stress reliever. I was so upset for so long that being able to put my feelings so deeply into an art piece felt really good. There will always be positives and there will always be negatives in nursing school placements but sometimes you have to step back and reflect on how the two come together to make a beautiful outcome of learning and personal development.
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