Image courtesy of Natalia Mirabito
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Talk: #markinglivescovid19 project , WITH LIZ AWALT & GUESTS
Wednesday, March 10th (6:30PM-8:00PM)
Maximum 100 attendees
Free
The Cambridge Art Association, in partnership with Concord Art, is pleased to present a talk on #markinglivesCOVID19, an online, artmaking forum and Instagram account created by Liz Awalt. You can follow the project on Instgram at @markinglivescovid19. In this free event, Liz will discuss the project with several of the participating artists, Liz will be joined in conversation by participating artists, including Warren Anderson, Lisa Barthelson, Gupi Ranganathan, and Debra Weisberg.
On how #markinglivesCOVID19 started, from Liz Awalt:
In December 2020, after nine months of COVID-19 deaths, I woke to the unsettling statistic that 270,000 people had died. The lives lost were simply numbers on the front page. Our government did not have a plan. Testing was expensive and not readily available, and a vaccine wasn’t anything but a hope. My immediate friends and family were well, but for how long? I felt scared, numb, enraged and unable to help in any way. The virus was impossible to ignore, but at the same time, somehow unmarked.
I’m an artist who paints from nature. Out of a need to do something personal, and to understand the numbers of people losing their lives to the pandemic, I started making paintings. I set simple boundaries for myself, making marks on a page with brush and ink to honor those who died from Covid-19. Each mark represented a life lost. I counted as I created. Working toward a thousand marks, I found the process to be akin to prayer or meditation. I did not think of the final work as “art” or to judge it as good or bad. The process allowed me to pay attention to each life — each mother, child, grandparent or father who had left this earth. Surprisingly, the limitations freed me to explore color, type of mark, and image.
Finding it compelling to mark so many lives, 1,000 to 5,000 on a page, I thought maybe others would feel the same way. I posted some of my images on Instagram and invited painters, fiber artists, printmakers and an architect to join me. To my delight, they sent me wonderfully varied images to post, along with expressions of gratitude for the opportunity to honor the many victims of COVID. It was the beginning of “Marking Lives COVID-19,” an exciting project that is growing every day.
While this event is free, registration is required. All registrants will receive ZOOM login in advance of the event.
Image courtesy of Liz Awalt.