By: Mary Beth Almond | Rochester Post | Published June 22, 2022
ROCHESTER — When the world shut down amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Rochester resident Donna Dzialo found her inspiration for a new piece of artwork that’s currently on display at Ascension Providence Rochester Hospital.
Dzialo — a nurse anesthetist at the hospital — embarked on the creative journey in 2018, when, with the help of coworkers, she began saving colorful caps from the vials of drugs that are normally discarded from hospital settings.
“I saw the caps being thrown out, and I thought I could make something from them,” she said.
While Dzialo had originally intended to craft a nature scene or perhaps a Van Gogh or Monet replica from the colorful caps, once she saw pictures of COVID-19 antibodies under the microscope, she opted instead to design an interesting art piece portraying the immune system fighting COVID-19.
“When COVID came, I was looking at literature and reading about it, and I was seeing these images of what was going on in the body and trying to understand it, and I thought, I could share this with others and educate others. This could be a learning tool for people,” she said.
It was a heavy undertaking, to say the least.
Dzialo’s family said she was often at it several hours at a time, for over 18 months carefully arranging over 6,000 caps in nearly 400 colors, sizes, shapes and textures — alongside IV tubing and needle covers and caps — to represent infected cells, blood cells and antibodies.
“It was more than a full-time job,” said Michael Dzialo, Donna’s husband. “From start to finish, I think we are probably talking well over 1,000 hours — probably more like 2,000 hours. There were times when I was getting up to go to work and she was going to bed because she had worked all night long on the project.”
“When you’re working on it you lose track of time,” Donna Dzialo added. “It’s like a puzzle, and it just starts to flow. I would get really good at it, and it was hard to stop.”
The end result, an 8-by-4-foot mosaic titled “COVID Time CAPSule,” was on display at the JW Marriott during ArtPrize, an independent international art competition in Grand Rapids in September 2021.
“When I was in Grand Rapids, that was the one thing people liked the most about it — hearing the story about how this works. It’s not just pretty. It also says something,” she said.
Another goal of the art is to bring awareness to nurses and the need to attract more individuals to the profession.
“We’re in a national shortage of nurses, so any money we can get to help encourage their education is much needed,” Donna Dzialo explained.
The artwork — which was unveiled locally May 10 during National Nurses Week — is currently on display at Ascension Providence Rochester Hospital.
In conjunction with the Ascension Providence Rochester Foundation, Dzialo is hoping to inspire donations to the hospital to help provide nursing scholarships to assist others in their career goals.
“We have a nursing and education scholarship fund at the foundation, so we created signage to go with the artwork so that people can make donations to that fund to support either those that would like to become nurses, or nurses here that want to do some further professional development or education,” said Beth Collins-Mapleh, the senior gift officer at Ascension Providence Rochester Foundation. “People can now enjoy the artwork and, hopefully, it can bring some joy and a little brightness to everyone’s day here at the hospital.”
Those interested in supporting Dzialo’s efforts can make a donation to the Nursing/Medical Scholarship Education Fund through Ascension Providence Rochester Foundation by emailing Elizabeth.CollinsMapleh@ascension.org or calling (248) 652-5362.
The artwork is located on the second floor, near the cafeteria and the chapel, at Ascension Providence Rochester Hospital, 1101 W. University Drive in Rochester.