Health workers honoured in art on boarded-up store windows
Business owner calls on artists to depict doctors, nurses, after portraits of top health officers are painted
A Vancouver business owner who boarded up her shop windows is calling on artists to paint pictures on them featuring the faces of people involved in the fight against the spread of coronavirus.
A couple have already been painted: portraits of Canada's chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam and B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry.
Kimprints owner Kim Briscoe says the idea came to her after she closed up her picture-framing store in Gastown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I started putting the word out to artists that I know: Let's do some pictures of Dr. Theresa Tam, she 's always in the news, and so is Dr. Bonnie Henry," said Briscoe.
"I just thought ... they're always working so hard, and I thought I'm going to give them a shout out."
Artist Breece Austin said she was drawn to Tam and chose to paint her.
"She just kind of had this grab for inspiration," Austin said. "Something about her ... was really awesome to paint."
Briscoe says other artists are coming on Wednesday to paint doctors and nurses working on the front lines of the crisis.
