University of Georgia Athletics
Hayden Merrick Uses Art To Find Peace Amidst COVID-19
July 27, 2020 | Track & Field
By Tori Heck
GeorgiaDogs.com Intern
Seventy student-athletes graduated two months ago with the University of Georgia's class of 2020, amidst a global pandemic. Along with the rest of the graduated class, they have been left with an unprecedented and uncertain path into the post-grad world.
Hayden Merrick, a former Track and Field student-athlete, has found solace during the chaos of her post-grad life by throwing herself into one of her deepest passions: art.
Gallery: Track and Field: Hayden Merrick's Art
“It's almost therapeutic,” Merrick said. ”Because the way that I do a lot of creative anything is I'll have a TV show playing in the background and I'll be working, and so it's just kind of nice and chill and relaxed.”
Merrick began her interest in creative work with creative writing. Since, she has expanded her skillset past pen and paper -- to drawing, photography and most recently, quilting and sewing.
“I have a lot more free time,” Merrick said. ”So I've been doing a lot more creative outlets.”
At the beginning of the stay at home orders issued in response to COVID-19, Merrick's sister, Mckenzie Cunningham, emailed her a link to a Quarantine Quilting 101 class being put on by Michelle Collins, a member of Merrick's church. Over the course of the 3-week class, Merrick followed along with step-by-step videos as she learned the process of quilting.
“[I learned that quilting] takes a lot of time,” Merrick said. ”And that it's okay to mess up. I messed up a lot.”
Having multiple creative outlets is not something unique to this season of Merrick's life. Her mother, Cindy Merrick, has hundreds of binders and notebooks full of stories Merrick has written since she was a child. Her brother, Mclain Merrick, remembers his little sister being interested in cartoons as a child and took notice of her talents early in their childhood.
“She's always been artistic,” Mclain Merrick said. ”Always designing things and … creating characters.”
Merrick's family continues to be amazed by her skillset. While she's been spending more time at home, she taught herself how to sew and created a letter jacket inspired by artist Gabriel Picolo's rendition of Robin from the Teen Titans. She freehanded the creation based off of a technique she found on YouTube.
“She looked at a letter jacket and recreated it having never learned to sew,” Cindy Merrick said. ”She's another level of creative. She's just got an eye that can dissect things and figure out how to do them.”
In her time at Georgia, Merrick had the opportunity to grow these abilities that she has had since elementary school.
She began creative writing around third grade, and when she got to high school, she wanted to create visual representations of the characters from her written stories. She started drawing in order to bring them to life.
As an advertising major in the Grady College of Journalism & Communication, Merrick wanted to add a minor to fulfill course credits needed to complete her degree. Tatiana Gusin, her former track teammate at Georgia, suggested a studio art minor. Merrick added it to her coursework and took classes that helped enhance her drawing skills.
While competing at Georgia, Merrick threw discus and hammer, focusing mainly on discus in the later half of her career. Associate head coach Don Babbitt said Merrick is incredibly determined -- much like she is in her artistic pursuits.
“She puts a lot of pressure on herself,” Babbitt said. ”As time went on, and she got more and more experience, she was really able to take that pressure she put on herself and channel it in a way that really made her a lot better in the meets.”
Merrick was able to marry her love for art with her love for track and field in some ways. She served on the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (S.A.A.C.) and was given the opportunity to create content on Adobe Creative Cloud for S.A.A.C..
Now, she occasionally creates content for Georgia Track & Field's Instagram and other platforms.
“It's really nice having those connections at the school,” Merrick said. ”I think since I've been an athlete my entire life, I want to eventually make my way back to [working in] athletics.”
