By Julia Train
“At the start of COVID, there [were] a lot of people who were unsure of what was going on… and I wanted to give a bird’s eye view of what it’s like to be on the front line,” said Kate Bergen, a paramedic and artist.
Bergen always used art as a form of catharsis. She started creating at 3 years old and taught herself how to paint when she was 18.
During the pandemic, she was inspired to use her stress to create art with a deeper meaning. Her first painting was of herself. She drew inspiration from Howard Miller’s “Rosie the Riveter.”
Bergen, a native of Absecon who now lives in Stafford Township, used some elements of the two famous symbols in her own art piece, which urged people to stay home.
When asked why she chose Rosie, she said, “I felt like we were at war. I felt like I was getting up getting dressed for a war we knew nothing about every day… I felt like I needed a PSA for the public. Like we will do our job if you can stay home. I had seen that somewhere. And I really liked it and it sort of made me think of a call to action, which made me think of Rosie the Riveter.”
After starting this series, Bergen was surprised to learn that not everyone knows who Rosie the Riveter is.
During World War II, Rosie was a symbol for women in the workforce. Women who worked to produce war material during this time called themselves “Rosies.”
“Instead of a call to action like Rosie the Riveter was, it was a call for inaction,” Bergen said. From there, she shared the painting with others in the community, who had a positive reaction.
With two children under 3 years old and a husband working in the COVID ICU five days a week for 12 hours, and worrying about bringing the virus home, Bergen’s mental state deteriorated. She decided to begin talking to others about how she felt being on the frontlines during a pandemic, including a friend who’s an ER nurse.
Bergen’s friend, who’s Asian, told her that she had patients who were more scared of her because of her race than the disease itself.
“I was upset for her because here she is on the front lines with us, trying to help people and that’s how she was treated or how it was assumed. So I painted her,” Bergan said.
She went on to paint 50 women, who were all essential workers, and it turned into a series, which eventually turned into a book titled, “Modern Day Rosies: The Women Behind The Masks.”
One of the subjects featured in her book was an actual riveter during the war who worked on planes. During the pandemic, she started making masks for the public for free.
Other women in her book include a funeral director, a teacher, a stay-at-home mom, a therapist, an environmental services worker and a trucker.
Through the process, she learned that others in the same position felt similarly, but had different coping mechanisms. While some people drank, others exercised or kept their focus on work.
“I didn’t realize that anyone else was really struggling the way that I was struggling until I started speaking to these women. So it really became a beautiful project,” Bergen said. “It really blossomed into something that I couldn’t have predicted, but it just grew organically. It’s something that has just been really really special and continues to be special”
She would have her subjects dress up in their equipment related to their profession, and she’d take a photo to reference while painting, which took around six hours for one portrait.
After three years of painting portraits for this series, Bergen published a book in September and continues to expand her subjects to other professions or origin stories.
“This book really turned into an enlightening project that showed me the lack of mental health resources that women in healthcare reach out for… People in healthcare, and especially women are used to shouldering so much more of the burden of our daily lives or just shouldering this burden and not seeking help,” she said.
