WHEELING In the late 1870s, Wheeling native Jeanie Caldwell Dougherty (1845-1935) traveled the world as an independent, working artist. She became “a citizen of the world” and worked to find “the closest thing to equality that she could’ve,” surrounding herself with people who valued her as an equal, said Kara Yenkevich, curator at The […]
NORA EDINGER For the Sunday News-Register
WHEELING The day will come when it is possible to go to school or to the grocery store without a mask, which begs an interesting question. What will happen to all these colorful scraps of fabric and elastic when COVID is contained?
“Some people are going to be so excited to not wear a mask, they’re going to want to burn it,” joked Kara Yenkevich, curator for the Museums of Oglebay Institute. “You’ve got to have celebration like the memes of people turning them into hamster hammocks.”
But, if history tells us anything, she said it’s equally possible that some masks will make their way into museum archives. This could be as physical artifacts of the COVID-19 pandemic like those already being collected by institutions such as the Smithsonian. Or, it might be in the form of art.