Closing the Curtain on COVID?

Posted on by Thor

400 to 500 people continue to die every day due to COVID-19. Every week the number of people who die from COVID is about to the number of people ho died on September 11, 2001 when the twin Towers were attacked. That is our new normal. It is better that the several thousand who were dying every day back in January 2022.

Despite the ongoing death toll, President Joe Biden declared on 60 Minutes that the “the pandemic was over.” Biden himself had COVID twice just recently but with the beast healthcare options available, he and his wife pulled through. If you remember, a year ago for July 4, 2020,  Biden also declared we would be independent of the virus. Like any politician he want to downplay the virus as elections roll around.

So who actually gets to decide when the pandemic ends? No single person can flip a switch and declare a pandemic over. COVID remains a public health emergency in the United States, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, and it’s still a public health emergency of international concern, or PHEIC, according to US Department of Health and Human Services (WHO).

The World Health Organization did a horrible job on deciding when the pandemic should begin. Had they acted sooner and closed off flights out of China back in 2020, the virus could have been contained and eradicated. Last week, Tedros said the end of the pandemic “is in sight,” but he added that “we are not there yet.” So where is “there”?

Back in 1918, the Spanish Flue pandemic swept across America, starting in a WWI training base in Kansas where my great Grandfather was stationed.  The virus was ignored by press and the president because the country was at war. After a devastating wave of death in the fall of 1918, bodies lay in the streets and mass graves had to be dug. By the beginning of 1919 most mask orders, closures and social distancing orders were lifted. Waves of disease continued through 1920 the year my father was born.

Vaccines and treatments offer some protection from severe disease and death but they do not stop re-infection. The Biden administration has said it intends to stop buying vaccines, tests and treatments, shifting those things to the commercial market.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert who directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said, that in his estimation, cases, hospitalizations and deaths are still too high to say the pandemic is over. We also don’t know what variants of the virus could emerge or how our immunity will hold up against them. “I don’t think people really understand what the implications are for this virus,” Osterholm said. “All of us want the pandemic to be over, but you can’t make it go away by just making a policy decision.

Wait and Hope

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Wait and Hope was what was inscribed on this headstone in the Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. Pam and I visited this cemetery on our recent trip through South Carolina and Georgia with our house guest and two dogs. After our visit with my sister in South Carolina, we headed further south and stayed in Savannah.

We did a late night ghost tour of downtown Savannah and then manged to solve an escape room with only 1 second to spare. We stopped at another cemetery on our trip which surrounded a former church which only has the old brick work to remind us that the church once stood there.

Little Gracie is the most visited monument in Bonaventure Cemetery. I considered sketching her but she is surrounded on three sides by hedges making for a cramped view of the site. Gracie Watson was born in 1882 to Wales J. and Margaret Frances Watson. The Watson family was originally from Boston Massachusetts. They made their way to Savannah after Wales was hired to manage the Pulaski Hotel. This luxurious hotel, was one of the best hotels in all of the south. Managing the hotel was a prestigious position. While working at the hotel his daughter, Gracie Watson, became quite the center of attention. This bright-eyed girl warmed the hearts and brought smiles to the faces of almost every visitor to the Hotel. It is said she would put on little shows for the guests, dancing in the lobby and singing songs. In 1889, at the tender age of 7, Gracie Watson died from pneumonia.

Gracie’s father fell into a deep depression after her death. Gracie’s father had sculpture John Walz carve a monument to his girl. Using a photograph as reference John Walz sculpted the monument which now sits upon Little Gracie’s grave site out at Bonaventure Cemetery.

While Pam and our guest walked the dogs, exploring the cemetery, I sketched a short distance from Gracie. Periodically golf carts would drive up and a tour guide would relate Gracie’s story. I was kind of glad I didn’t sketch that site since it was so busy. Lawn mowers and leaf blowers were also moving up and down the aisles. I didn’t bring my artist stool, so I made due by tying my sweatshirt around my legs and back to create a make shift back support. It worked well enough to help me finish the sketch.

 

COVID-19 Orphans

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A paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association out of the University of Oxford, reported that 10.5 million children world wide have lost parents or care givers due to COVID-19 from January 1, 2020 to May 1. 2022. 7.5 million children were left orphaned with both parents dying from COVID-19. The Imperial College of London offers a daily report on the number of children who have lost a care giver on any given day. As of September 13, 2022 that number has risen to 10.6 million children.

40.6% of these children are in South East Asia, 24.3% are in Africa, 14% in the Americas, 14.6 in the Eastern Mediterranean, 4.7% in Europe, and 1.8% in the Western Pacific region. In India there are 3.5 million orphaned children due to COVID-19.

In America from April 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021, data suggest that more than 140,000 children under age 18 in the United States lost a parent, custodial grandparent, or grandparent caregiver who provided the child’s home and basic needs, including love, security, and daily care. Approximately 1 out of 500 children in the United States has experienced COVID-19-associated orphan hood or death of a grandparent caregiver. “Children facing orphan hood as a result of COVID is a hidden, global pandemic that has sadly not spared the United States,” said Susan Hillis, CDC researcher and lead author of the study.

With America’s COVID-19 relief funding being cut by the Senate across the board, there is no help for these children who have lost everything. Florida’s “Stunt Governor” Ron DeathSantis has vowed to coerce as many of Florida’s COVID orphans as he can onto a plane to Martha’s Vineyard to gain notoriety in his bid to run for president.

Elizabeth on 37th

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Elizabeth on 37th (105 E 37th St, Savannah, GA ) is a fine dining establishment in Savannah Georgia. This was probably my first experience dining out in a five star restaurant since the start of the pandemic. All wait staff wore masks, but we were the only patrons who wore masks in the restaurant. I only lowered my mask long enough to eat, and then raised it back into place.

There was a sustained buzzing atmosphere as waiters moved swiftly from table to table meeting peoples needs before they surfaced. As I sketched I paid attention as wait staff watched their tables with a heightened alertness. I miss this energy, which is much life the buzz in an audience just before a curtain lifts.

The restaurant is in a beautiful old historic home. The mansion, built for a cotton broker, is decorated with historic Savannah colors and patterns, fresh flowers, original paintings and ceramics, and is entered through the herb gardens.

The restaurant is run by brothers Greg and Gary Butch, who started out as waiters in the restaurant’s early days and became partners in 1988.  Pam asked about the history of the building. Our server brought over Greg who proudly showed her a photo album. Inside was his true delight, a picture with the Dalai Lama along with pictures that included Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu and Nobel physicists. Monks have visited the restaurant and when they do, they create an intricate mandala from gains of colored sand. After a solid week of creation the incredibly intricate design is destroyed and dumped into a local river to show that all is transient. We are all gains of sand in the universe.

Greg also talked about a program he was proud of which helps military veterans recover from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It is his greatest pride, bringing Buddhist principles into the recovery process.  He is also spearheading fundraising efforts to get state of the art water treatment facilities to the monks in Tibet.

Granted the food a Elizabeth on 37th was fresh and delicious, but Greg’s other passion is in humanity and a world without crazing. If you find yourself in Savannah, you have to go.

Crealde Classroom

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My Crealde Urban Sketching students were give the challenge to sketch the classroom and include as many of their fellow students as they could in the sketch. I settled in and joined them. Students who wore masks discussed why they choose to do so. One student like myself has never been infected by COVID-19 and it trying to keep it that way. The other student recently recovered from COVID-19 and has no desire to be re-infected. Since 2/3 of the students now choose to not ear masks, I keep the studio door open on the rare days we work inside.

Most of my classes these days are virtual for Elite Animation Academy. I enjoy the virtual classes because I get to work with students one on one and I am sketching along with them so they see how I work at all times. My feedback is far more immediate and interactive online. With the online courses we are learning the foundations of sketching, character design and animating. I particularly enjoy teaching animation since I get to animate a scene with the students every class.

July 4, 2022 Sarasota Florida

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For July 4, Pam, our house guest and I drove to Sarasota Florida. Pam arranged for us to see fireworks from an exclusive waterfront club. It was strange going into a large mask less crowd but we kept our kn95s on for the duration.  By the end of July COVID-19 cases had spiked up to 39,000 before they stared a slow decent in August 2022.

People packed in as tight as their lawn chairs would allow. We found a decent park bench to sit on which offered some social distancing due to the sidewalk in front of us. It had been pouring rain prior to the fireworks display so we weren’t sure they would even go off.

Last year we went to Saint Augustine to see the fireworks, because President Biden had said that we could celebrate the end of the pandemic. A year later he had COVID-19 and we were celebrating the same agonizing end. Everyone wished the pandemic was over but wishful thinking doesn’t end a pandemic.

Anyway, the fireworks were spectacular. Everyone stood as the grand crescendo of explosions climaxed. Americans love a good bang.

Posthumous

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Phoenix Tears Productions presents, Posthumous an immersive interactive Zoom show where you act as investors or new employees and through your choices take one of five paths and cause one of ten endings. Audience is encouraged to interact, participate, ask questions, talk to Posthumous employees, and directly affect the story.

I sat in and sketched a beta version of the show which I imagine is the equivalent of a dress rehearsal. After a quick introduction to the Zoom interface, I was moved into a zoom meeting room for new employees. There were about 30 people in the zoom meeting to start who were new employees, prospective clients, or potential investors. Having so many people in the meeting set me into panic mode as I scrambled to fit everyone on the page. I probably wasn’t the ideal new hire since I was sketching the entire time.

The general premise is that Posthumous is the the biggest and best afterlife company who supplies an ideal scripted afterlife for people’s souls after they die. As part of the new research team I got to meet one of the recently deceased who was a bit disoriented. We got to experience one of her final waking life memories and began to unravel both the mystery of her death and the darker side of the Posthumous corporate culture. An amazing twist is that we were able to interact with the memory as if we were in the body of the deceased. Any questions asked would alter the memory.

I felt a little disappointed that I had lost so many people as they branched off to their own individual adventures. Slowly however people began to trickle back into our meeting to share their experiences as investors and prospective clients who had been given a tour. Giving a corporation the ability to curate death has menacing consequences and it became our responsibility to get to the bottom of a dark mystery.

Only at the end did we discover who was in the cast and who was in the audience. Those distinctions blurred and didn’t matter as we worked to unravel the corporate mystery. I fully enjoyed the experience. I certainly would have been able to contribute more if I had not been distracted with sketching, but there was a dark delicious humor to the show as a whole.

Show times are,

  • Fri., Sept. 23, 2022 at 8 p.m.,
  • Sat., Sept. 24, 2022 at 3 & 9 p.m.,
  • Sun., Sept. 25, 2022 at 1 & 7 p.m.,
  • Fri., Oct. 7, 2022 at 8 p.m.,
  • Sat., Oct. 8, 2022 at 3 & 9 p.m.
  • Sun., Oct. 9, 1 & 7 p.m.

Tickets are $35 to $45.

Crealde Sketch Demo

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This was a demo I did for my Crealde Urban Sketch class. The primary point of the demo was to use high contrast to draw the eye to what you want the viewer to look at. In this case I want the viewer to look at the wings and then the sculpture on top of the column. When there is a pure dark black color against white it becomes an eye magnet. It is hard not to look at that area.

The rest of the page was covered with quick washes and line work. Some students stayed to see the whole sketch until it was completed while I encouraged others to branch off and start their on sketch once they wanted to. Personally when I have the chance to watch an artist whose work I admire, I watch their every move. How often do they look up? How big is the pallet with how many colors. Where do they linger and where do they rush in the sketch process.

I learned quite a bit by watching a Russian artist whose work I liked. I didn’t understand a word he said, but I learned from every movement of his hands over the page. A sketch consists of millions of quick decisions and refinements of mistakes made. Words fall short in describing every flash of inspiration ad desperation that happens while a sketch is in progress. Sketching on location raises the stakes, making it necessary to make all those decisions in a compressed amount of time. In a studio an artist has a tenancy to linger and get lazy.

The next series of Urban Sketching classes starts after October 17, 2022.

 

Crealde Classroom

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Most of my Crealde Urban Sketching classes have been held outside during the pandemic. Sometimes however the weather forces us indoors. For those classes I teach the students how to populate a sketch with multiple people in an indoor setting. The lesson starts at the blackboard where I explain how to relate one figure to another in a sketch.

I put away the desks for this class so we would have a wide open space to sketch. Many students have difficulty sketching people who are behind a desk. Like most of my sketches done on location I teach the students to think about drawing the room and then adding actors to that room.

As always, I do a sketch along with the students and show them my progress at the various sates of the sketch’s progression. I have a love affair with line and I try and convey that passion to the students. Watercolor washes are a fun afterthought to pull together all the elements that have been locked in place with line.

The next series of Sunday Crealde Urban Sketching classes starts after October 17, 2022.

Orange County Regional History Center

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My advanced Urban Sketching student and I went for a sketch excursion at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E Central Blvd, Orlando, FL). I leave it up to my student to decide what to sketch.  She was intrigued by this Orlando Air Base display. With this display about 1/4 of an airplane fills the gallery while manikins inspect the wheel well.

The challenge was to make the plane and wing appear huge in the small gallery space. I opted to make it clear that the plane was enclosed in the room. The sketch isn’t absolutely accurate. There was a platform that the airman stood on but I didn’t think it helped to tell the story, so I left it out. I felt that what helped make the plane parts feel massive was the dark shadow they cast on the wall.

The display tells the story of the Orlando Naval Training Center which was established in 1966. For about 30 years the training center was in operation. The training center was fully operational between 1968 and 1994. More than 652,000 recruits passed through the facility. After being closed and demolished, the site became the Baldwin Park neighborhood. Blue Jacked Park in Baldwin Park has two memorials  dedicated to the Naval Training Center, the Lone Sailor, and the Blue Jacket Recruit.