COVID Characters: Part III
“Art is a line around your thoughts.” – Gustav Klimt
I’ve been allowing myself to check the stats only once a day at this point, in an effort of sanity-preservation. As of today, according to the ArcGIS map here, there have been 2,546,527 [confirmed] cases of the coronavirus, aka COVID19. The United States is host to 816,240 of them.
Keep calm and draw together. In times of war and crisis, everyone brings their gifts and abilities to the table for their community and country. Warriors fight, hospitals heal, governors manage, sewists sew, musicians write songs and artists capture it all. I feel this calling deeply and am responding with the continued digital painting collection I’m working on. These characters come into my head and I can’t not put them together for others to enjoy and identify with.
Right now, armies of artists are drawing and painting to capture our current crisis experience.
As we draw, it feels both imperative for the sake of history and it feels pointless because it doesn’t offer physical help in this moment. I continue on, in response to the drive within me, and I look forward to being able to look back on this time and have to reach to remember why I put trends and cultural references into each piece – I look forward to being separated enough from this COVID19 crisis that I have to strain to remember it. That will be a great day.
“COVID Characters: Victory Maker”
This digital kitty is a busy, amateur sewist, as many around the globe are finding themselves to be. I’ve seen social groups rallying around the creation of homemade masks and scrub caps to donate to needy institutions, and/or sell/distribute among their family and friends in response to local laws prohibiting being in public spaces without proper protection. People are using scrap quilting fabric, t-shirts, hair ties and elastic to protect their communities and loved ones, as they donate their love and energy to this critical mission. The abstract window outline behind our friend Marvin the cat here is deliberately stark, as a reference to the feeling of being imprisoned in our homes to a degree during this pandemic. And on a more comforting note, the trending “Dalgona Coffee” or whipped coffee, is featured beside him as he works as a nod to the fad-nature of this recipe circulating the social media channels and conversations.
“COVID Characters: Sidewalk Artiste”
This lovable but skittish turtle is representing the large portion of our population finding themselves taking to the bike trails or sidewalks for physical recreation, socially-distanced conversation and also chalky masterpiece creation. Masks are not required on the trails, but in many parts of the world (in which the trails are open) it is becoming more and more of a faux pas NOT to wear a mask while recreating in these places. Turtles and other wild life are becoming more active as the spring months progress, and often find themselves in the way of cyclists and walkers who are not usually such frequent visitors to these nature reserves. And of course, the sidewalk chalk in stained-glass design is a nod to the trend that became popular very quickly among parents and children alike as they did this to sidewalks and even applied to interior home windows with a chalk in a paint form.
