The Healing Art of Art

This year, I started practicing art for art’s sake. Not to get good at it, but to get out of my head. To create something and not dwell so much on the happenings of the planet. My approach to art is with a beginner’s mindset.  I enjoy creating, but I don’t expect to become great.  I don’t practice it.  And I don’t intend to make myself famous with some newfound skill. For me, this is a meditative act.

One of these artistic endeavours is a newfound appreciation of origami.  Am I good at it?  No.  At any given time, you would be able to find bunched up pieces of origami paper all over my apartment.  I don’t even find it relaxing (yet), though I am determined to make a crane. It does not need to be perfect; it just needs to resemble something other than a crumpled piece of paper.  I will not give up until this happens.

And while I am using this art to practice mindfulness and maybe some simple beauty. There is a woman who is using origami for good.  Her name is Joanna Hutchinson, and she has a project to commemorate the American lives lost to COVID, although I think it’s a beautiful and healing gesture for the entire world, and that is how I choose to view it.

While it is a commemorative sculpture, it is also a protest to her government’s handling of this pandemic, which is why she chose to use red paper. In her words,

“Red for bloodshed, and anger, but also representing energy and love.”

The original plan for this project of 100.000 folds was to create a visual scale of US COVID deaths by making 100 000 paper triangles that she would build into a commemorative sculpture. At the start, she was asking for participants to fold 250 triangles. She has received enough help to make that goal, but since the death toll keeps rising, her plans may have changed, and she may need more folders.  Regardless you can contact her here, offer her your assistance, or a few dollars for postage (since she mails out packages of paper for folding to her volunteers), or even a few words of encouragement.

Usually, I would try to highlight the goings-on in our own communities. However, the pandemic has turned us into a true global village. And we should be supporting each other, no matter what part of the world we live in. Joanna is allowing healing by letting us participate in something greater than ourselves.  And I, for one, am applauding her for this.

And I will be here perfecting my triangle folds just in case she needs more worker bees.