When Sharon Cranston-Fox came up with the idea of sketching people as they work and live during the COVID-19 pandemic she wasn’t sure there would be any interest.
She and her husband own and operate the Cranston Gallery in Lunenburg.
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Day 41 Lunenburg Confined COVID-19 project.
Wyatt Kariler and his Mom, Melanie Marie Uhlman, walked around their community of Lower Rose Bay on Earth Day, picking garbage up from the ditches. Way to go! Photo: Cranston Gallery/Facebook
The idea has since blown up, with Cranston-Fox saying she has enough submissions to continue sketching until Christmas.
“I have hundreds of photos I could do but the idea behind this was to sketch until the gallery was able to reopen,” Cranston-Fox says.
That day is now here as the gallery is set to open on June 5th and tomorrow the last sketch will be posted. The final sketch is going to be of Cranston-Fox herself.
“I figured it would be nice to see who was behind all the sketches,” She said.
The series has sketches of people from all walks of life doing all sorts of things. The artist says each picture tells a unique story some of which are happy and some that are not.
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Day 70 Lunenburg Confined COVID-19 project. Suffering the loss of a loved one is a time of grief, sadness, and reflection which is normally shared with family and friends. COVID-19 has changed this. Shayna Ward’s Mother, Betty Bush passed away from cancer on March 28th. The night before, Shayna’s children, Soraya and Dryden broke self-isolation to visit their Grandmother one last time, and to say goodbye. Our heartfelt condolences. Photo: Cranston Gallery/Facebook
“One of the sketches features this young boy who’s expression is so joyful I just had to do it,” Cranston-Fox added, “Today’s sketch (June 4) shows a woman who had to endure the death of her mother without the support of her friends and family.”
Those emotions hit home for Cranston-Fox who said it made her think of her own mother and other people that are struggling with separation from their loved one.
She wanted to include people of all ages and backgrounds and the series does exactly that. However, Cranston-Fox was willing to put some people at the top of the list of those being front line workers. “With what they are doing right now I wanted to be sure to include them, so there are a lot of nurses, I did an RCMP officer and a Bridgewater Police Officer.”
The project is now going to be self-published in what will be Cranston-Fox’s first book.
You can see all the sketches on the gallery’s Facebook page.
