No work. No school. Isolated at home hiding from the Coronavirus while medical professionals risk their lives. Normally putting your life in jepordy is NOT a requirement in the healthcare industry. Two months of warning and both hospitals and government failed to provide protective gear. So today, caring for coved-19 patients is an unprecedented act of sheer selflessness. Medical care has entered a new paradigm with all new considerations.
Let’s be real, it’s a damn pay check, right? If medical personnel in the United States decided they’d rather wait til this pandemic “blew over” and quit their job to collect unemployment like the rest of America, it would not only be within their rights, but logical, even practical. Our medical system is run by private enterprises! There is no profit sharing with nurses.
However, they keep showing up. It is worthy of honoring and praising. Nurses are todays heroes.
I wanted to do something, but what?
As an artist, some of my most important tools are gloves, respirators, as well as, eye and face shields. These objects stand between me and harmful agents. They guaranteed my health. In fact, the consistent use of personal protective gear was an act of self-love, an important act too. Should I donate my respirator? In the past month, these tools have become valuable commodities. Their monetary value distorted due to supply. My art gear was no longer about my personal protection; PPE had morphed into the armor between human mortality and acts of humanity.
From Personal Protection to Collective Preservation
It is the transition from personal protection to collective preservation that struck me. Never has man been tested to this degree, at this scale, with so few able to fight the fight, and the other billion plus, asked to stay at home and watch. Out of the office, out of school, out of our cars with no bars, no manicures, no dirty chia lattes! No boats to drive away the manettees. Who would have thought people could change their lifestyle in a day, across the world. But we did.
Worldwide Change in a Day
Even more interesting, within the 2 or 3 or 4 billion asked to do so little, there are those who bewail the “hardship.” The unsavory who lick all the packaging at the store, who have packed parties in defiance, who continue to travel as if all Americans were “out of the office” for a national holiday instead of an international pandemic. In spite, no! due to, these very different reactions, I realized what a gift this pandemic has given the world. Proof: the collective good far out weighs.
Evidence Humans Suck Less
It is sweeping evidence of human adaption. It’s more than subduing a virus; it’s hope for the future. It’s a template for environmental responsibility. No one can say, “people will never stop driving their cars” because they will, if life is at stake. “Big business runs everything and everyone.” It doesn’t. March 2020, people choose people. Governors, Mayors, employers, ministers, principles, neighbors, friends, parents, teenagers, and children of parents across the globe are choosing one another.
Art Endeavor Designed to Promote and Grow the Collective Good.
So, while we might feel powerless as individuals, together the collective good will make the changes necessary. Honestly, I had my doubts. I’m sure you did to, but now…there isn’t any cause to wonder. It was this epiphany that connected my personal gear, my talents, my ability to create a meaningful message, and the methods to deploy it.
Hope Breeds Too
If I felt helpless, surely everyone else did also. Perhaps people could help me find these people who needed to be recognized for their efforts. (I doubted nurses and doctors would reach out to me on their own because they are typically “givers” not “takers.” Besides, they were too busy to advocate for themselves. Not only do the nurses and medical professionals feel appreciated, but I’ve given loved ones, family members, boyfriends, sisters, BFF’s, co-workers, away to care, as well.
Using social media, I made a sign: “I will work for nurses.” Written in the caption, I announced Free Art and asked my followers (hahaaa, like I have many) if they had a loved-ones we could thank with my art. My intention is to do a piece of art daily for an essential worker during the stay-at-home-directive.
#iwillworkfor #collectivegood
The series, Collective Good was born out of the COVID19 pandemic. On March 12, the pandemic proved the citizens of the world were a collective power which could implement sweeping positive change in a day. To highlight the momentousness of this feat, J. Balser Inc. pledged to thank those working and sacrificing the most during the pandemic, nurses risking their personal health. I envisioned a creative body of work that mirrored the pandemic phenomena: to highlight strength in numbers, personal sacrifice for community benefit, and create a contagious behavioral component where by an act of kindness begets another act of kindness to breed hope instead of the corona virus.
My commitment to continue to work through the pandemic, work for others I don’t know, strangers, also, mimics the type of selfless acts the public health providers were doing. The importance isn’t each work, but in their existence. Through their titles #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 each recipient is one among the collective good. They—the people, not the art—are the embodiment of beauty.
You must be logged in to post a comment.