How We Care Mural

In June of 2020, as so much of the world shut down and sheltered in place for COVID, I worked with Paint the Void to create a 43-foot mural about care with 40 ER doctors.

The doctors had spent shift after long shift caring for severely ill COVID patients under the glaring fluorescent lights of the ER. They wanted to spend quality time together doing something totally different. Once beautiful downtown San Francisco was filled with boarded up store fronts and restaurants. Paint the Void is an organization that stepped in connecting artists to boarded up storefronts (i.e. blank canvases), and in this case a group of doctors looking for a way to spend time together outside of the hospital and give back to the community.

I interviewed the doctors over zoom to come up with a design that shared a message of contagious care that they wanted to portray. The mural follows the story of an ER doctor who cares for a critically ill patient. Because the patient survives and is able to leave the hospital she is able to bring flowers to a grieving friend. Because the grieving friend feels supported, he is able to show up for work at the grocery store and deliver groceries to an elderly woman who can’t go out. Because of this, the elderly woman is able to cook dinner and welcome her tired granddaughter home from a long day of working in the ER -- who turns out to be the same doctor from the beginning of the mural. The mural reads HOW WE CARE SHAPES WHO WE ARE.