Friday, October 8, 2021

Improved Corona Jar

 

Title - "Improved Corona Jar"
12 x 14", acrylic on mounted gessoed aluminium panel
painting #288, 2021

This painting might look fun and whimsical at first glance, but it is a allegorical piece that is also meant to pose as a form of social commentary. 

When the Covid-19 pandemic started in early January 2020, the main concern was to try to contain the virus and stop it from spreading. With no vaccine existing, it wasn't long before there were clusters of outbreaks with this virus being so highly contagious. The only way to stop the spread was to put sanitary measures and for many countries to go in lock down, resulting in the massive disruption of our daily lives. As cases multiplied, the healthcare system was soon overwhelmed with lack of PPE and patients going in severe respiratory distress, having to be sedated and intubated while trying to ride off the storm on a ventilator. It was the beginning of a very stressful time for frontline and healthcare workers. Even if all of this was happening, it kind of brought the world together. There were often rallies in front of hospitals in support of healthcare workers, households displaying rainbow signs in their windows that everything was going to be alright, the Zoom platform exploding in popularity, people in cities opening their windows to sing and play music as a form of solidarity.  

Then all of a sudden, it became political, especially when mask mandates were implemented, which for some was a breach of the civil liberties. Science deniers and conspiracy theories would soon follow suite on social media and right-wing channels. Then the virus gradually became an instrument that caused division within the population.

In late 2020, there was hope on the horizon when several pharmaceutical research companies announcing that vaccines had been developed and were being approved for emergency use after their trials were completed.  These were found to have a very high efficacy rate in warding off the disease, hospitalization or deaths. 

When the vaccine rollout started, the response for vaccines was overwhelming. Finally, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. While some remained vaccine hesitant, the anti-mask / anti-vaccine militants started rallies in protest. Still hope remained as the general population continued to roll up their sleeves to get shots into arm. There was a possibility that herd immunity might be achievable if 70-75% or more of the population would become fully immunized. 

That theory seemed sound until the variants started to appear. The vaccines still remain highly effective with high efficacy rate among the general population with no underlying or auto-immune conditions in warding off, complications such as long Covid, hospitalization or death. When the Delta variant started to spread during the summer in the United States, it was a evident, that a pending storm was about to hit us with a 4th wave.  Especially when mask mandates were temporary lifted, our province opened its borders to the rest of Canada and later to the US. It was then referred to as  the pandemic of the unvaccinated, now affecting a much younger slice of the population as this variant is more than 2x as contagious as the previous variants according to the CDC (Centers of Disease Control and Prevention). 

When the federal and provincial governments started to gradually impose vaccination mandates for many public workers and students, followed by vaccine passports to access non essential services, this would incite and fuel the anti-vaxxers to start protesting in front of  hospitals against health care workers. You just can't make this stuff up. Within a year, rallies in front of hospitals went from cheers to jeers.

Our province of New Brunswick had fared rather well since the beginning of the pandemic with all of the precautionary measures in place and were regularly revised depending on the state of contagion. The tide has since turned as we are currently experiencing an unprecedent influx with record high daily number of new cases infected with the Delta variant, hospitalisation and patients requiring ICU care. And this is with 90,1% of the eligible population having received one vaccine and 81,1% that are fully immunized. The fact remains that even if there are breakthrough infections, 80% of those requiring hospitalization are the unvaccinated, proving the the vaccines do work. Our provincial government announced this week that it would be imposing a circuit-breaker system in specific regions in order to contain the transmission of the virus since our hospital system is currently overwhelmed with Covid-19 infections. 

________   

As some of you may or may not know, I was a registered nurse for 35 years before retiring in 2017. On my birthday in late January, my wife offered me a scrumptious cloud cake. Three hours after making a wish and blowing the candles, I received a telephone call from my former employer. They weren't birthday wishes.  It was to join the vaccination taskforce for the vaccine rollout with public health. My response was, "Be careful for what you wish for" since my wish was for an end of the pandemic by year's end. After I received my first vaccine in March, I came out of retirement and started working at vaccination clinics, putting shots into arm. 

As a still life painter, I've been collecting small props for many years. Whenever I get a visceral response or I feel an attraction or a connection for a particular object, I will often buy it on impulse. It can be the first element that can immediately  ignite an idea or concept for a painting. Other times, it can take many years before an event might trigger a response when these stored objects come out of hibernation to be used to create the narrative.

Back in 2006, I was watching the Scotiabank Giller Prize on CBC. The Giller Prize, is a top literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English the previous year. The winner that year was "Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures" by Vincent Lam. Dr Lam is a medical doctor and was working as an emergency physician in Toronto at the time of his win. The book is a collection of short stories connected through the relationship that develop among a group of young doctors as they move from the challenges of med school to the intense world of emergency rooms, evac mission and terrifying new viruses. I bought the book shortly thereafter. The title alone intrigued me and thought, it would be a great prop for a painting, but under what circumstances? 

After I had started working at the vaccination clinic, I can across this Corona mason jar which was stored on a back of a shelf in my studio. When I bought it back in 2016, it dawn on me that it was the Spanish word for crown. Also, that I had previously acquired some Crown jars for a commission painting. In the context of the pandemic, the moment I saw the word Corona on the jar, it took a whole different meaning. It was then that the whole narrative for the painting came to me. Later that week , while working at the clinic, a pharmacist who pre-loads the syringes with the vaccine for the nurses kindly gave me an empty vial of the Pfizer BioNtech vaccine. I often refer to marbles as the mind, in the context of, "I'm losing my marbles". I won't go any further with the narrative and let you draw your own interpretation. Just know that the jar is flooded in light and hope. 

While I was painting away, I listened to "Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures" on audio book.  One of the short stories is entitled "Contact Tracing".  It deals with the SARS-CoV-1 that occurred in Toronto during the outbreak between 2002-2004. The initials stands for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-1. The narrator send chills down my spine as the unfolding drama was exactly the same as with our current pandemic. Lack of PPE, medical personnel getting infected and issues that arises while working in a hospital setting during a pandemic.

During that pandemic, 8110 cases with a 10% mortality rate were reported worldwide from 31 countries. The United States reported 27 cases with no deaths, while Canada reported 251 cases, 44 deaths including one doctor and two nurses who worked at a Toronto hospital. SARS-CoV-1 is one of seven known coronaviruses to infect humans. This current pandemic is SARS-CoV-2. When many claim that the vaccine was rushed and developed too quickly, what many don't realize is that the science and research in developing a vaccine for a coronavirus had been in the works in vaccine research labs for years. It's quite impossible to test a specific vaccine for a 3-phase human clinical trial if there is no outbreak within an infected population. 

But if we all coming together, follow sanitary mesures, do our citizen duty by getting vaccinated to protect ourselves and all those around us; maybe, just maybe, we'll put an end to this pandemic. 
   

Buy the book through these links-


This painting will be part of a small solo show entitled "Art-ifacts", hosted by the Fog Forest Gallery in Sackville, NB from October 14 to November 5, 2021. Unfortunately, in order for the gallery to remain open during the pandemic while keeping everybody safe, the gallery director and I came to the decision that it was safer not to hold an opening reception. The public however will be able to visit the gallery at their leisure during the run of the exhibition. 
The gallery will be open on Thursday and Friday from 10 am to 5 pm or by appointment. 


14 Bridge Street, Sackville,
New Brunswick, Canada, E4L 3N5
Phone (506) 536-9000

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