Painting on Cardboard – Coronavirus stories

As Coronavirus took hold of Korea in February, I started seeing a LOT more cardboard boxes put out for recycling on the street. Social distancing had people, including myself, ordering more online instead of going to the store. All the piles of boxes reminded me of an artist I met at the Seoul Art Book Fair last year, Tsukue Akimoto.

He is a cartoonist and collage artist who, among other mediums, draws and collages on cardboard. He explained he got his interesting boxes from the supermarket, as a lot of produce is imported from other countries. My heart leaped in delight at his at his quirky, upcycling work, and I have been wanting to try something similar ever since.

• 

• 

It only took a pandemic and a nation changing its spending habits to finally get my butt into gear. I kept my eyes open for any interesting-looking boxes, but none really inspired me. That is, until I got pizza to go one day. (If you’re ever in Seoul, Monster Pizza near Hongdae station has pretty good pizza by the slice.) Pizza, you are delicious and also my muse.

Monster Pizza

I shared this little dude on Instagram, and my IG friend Dominque at 3Cstyle suggested to make it into a series about what was happening in people’s lives because of the virus. It just so happened I had started jotting down some of the nice, inspiring stories coming out of the outbreak, so the idea seed was planted.

A few weeks later, I started painting.

A Piggy Bank of Love

The six o’clock news (covering regional stories) reported on a beautiful act of kindness from one youth center. The children of the youth center, elementary-school aged, had been saving their money since January for their first overseas trip. But when the Coronavirus super cluster blew up in Daegu, the children decided they wanted to donate their piggy banks to help the people fighting the outbreak. So they wrote letters of encouragement and donated 11 piggy banks amounting to over 200,000 KRW (~200 USD) to Daegu. It just doesn’t get any sweeter than that. My heart warms every time I think of those little baby angels.

Daejeo Green Tomatoes

The Daejeo area (now part of Busan) is famous for its green tomatoes, and the area has a big tomato festival every year. Of course, this year it was cancelled because of Coronavirus. This was a big blow to the Daejeo tomato farmers, but they made the best of a difficult situation and donated a mountain of boxes of tomatoes to the Daegu region. (I wrote down a lot of these stories when Daegu was really suffering.) This was another inspiring act of selflessness and giving in times of hardship that really moved me. My heart goes out to all the agricultural and fishery communities who are suffering right now.

An Post

Fellow collage artist Anne Heffernen shared news on one of her IG posts of another great story. The delivery staff of An Post, the postal service in Ireland, will begin “checking in” on older and vulnerable people along their route at least once a week. An Post also delivered 5 million postage-paid postcards to homes around the country, including prisons, nursing homes and homeless facilities, for people to write notes to loved ones. As a postcard and snail mail lover, this news really warmed my heart. I hope people take advantage of this service to send more mail! You can read the details here.

There’s a lot I want to critique about this last piece, but I’ll resist. The point of this series is to commemorate inspiration and hope through the meditative act of painting, so in that respect I’ll say I succeeded. As for the letters of love coming out of the exhaust pipe, I didn’t really have an explanation until my mom observed, “well the more miles those trucks travel, the more letters get sent. So it makes sense.” Thanks, mom.

Finally, here are two more stories in the same vein that I did earlier in painted paper collage:

View this post on Instagram

Coronavirus affecting people's livelihoods in so many different ways. In Korea, February and March means graduation and the start of the new school year. Usually parents and relatives buy students congratulatory bouquets to mark the occassions. However with graduation ceremonies cancelled and the start of school postponed, the flower industry has taken a big hit. I saw on the news the other day that one tulip farm's sales were a quarter of what they normally are. To help out the farmers, one local government office bought flowers and encouraged people stopping by to buy bouquets. They also gave their staff little vases of fresh flowers to brighten their desks.⚘🌷 (Thank you to @3cstyle_fashion for the idea to make a series about #coronavirusstories.) 그저께 <6시 내고향>에 나온 보도를 보고 시작한 튤립콜라주. 졸업식과 입학식이 다 취소되고 회훼 소비가 줄고, 콫산업이 큰 타격을 받고 있답니다. 그래서 이번주 사려고요 콫다발⚘🌷 – – – – – #coronavirus #korea #tulips #paintedpapercollage #cutpaper #flowerillustration #wip #꽃그림 #콜라주 #그림 #botannicalillustration

A post shared by A wonderful sheep / 원더풀양 (@awonderfulsheep) on Mar 10, 2020 at 9:18pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

#coronavirusstories 🩹 Sending all the love and light, admiration and gratitude to the nurses, doctors, hospital and containment staff, ambulance drivers and everyone at the front lines of this battle. In Korea the outbreak was concentrated in the Daegu region, and many emergency personnel from around the country volunteered to serve in this area which was severely short stafffed. They are drenched in sweat from wearing full body containment suits all day long, and have to wear bandaids to protect their faces from the masks and goggles. I collaged this piece to remind myself of their sacrifice anytime I find myself feeling grumpy about the inconvenience of wearing a mask or social distancing. Stay safe and well, everyone.💛 뉴스에서 많이 보셨죠? 얼굴에 밴드를 붙이고 방역복을 입고 우리 모두를 위해 매일 사투를 벌이는 의료진, 소방관, 방역 관계자들… 존경하고 감사합니다. ❤ – – – – – #cutpapercollage #papercutcollage #bandaid #korea #coronavirus #daegu #대구 #코로나19 #함께이겨냅시다 #감사합니다 #콜라주 #밴드

A post shared by A wonderful sheep / 원더풀양 (@awonderfulsheep) on Mar 13, 2020 at 9:35am PDT

If you’d like to see (and hear) behind the scenes, I’ve been sharing the process videos on my YouTube channel.

I sincerely hope you all are staying healthy, safe and well. If you have seen or heard of any positive or inspiring stories, please share! I’d love to hear (and maybe paint them!)