Giving back during COVID-19

Aloha everyone. I hope you are well, as well as can be. I thought it’s about time I write down some of my thoughts related to COVID-19 and its impacts on my life and the lives of others.

When things started shutting down and the seriousness of the pandemic hit us, I was worried and to be honest mostly focused on how it is negatively impacting my art career/business. At the beginning of the year the business was starting to pick up a little steam. In January I was invited by the owner of Magnolia Gallery to have my art shown and sold there. Lauren Roth invited me to be a featured artist at her Kailua boutique, with a scheduled opening event in April. And then most retail shops closed… the open air markets and events stopped… and I was left hanging with freshly stocked prints and a handful of new originals. Pretty bummers.

But we also received a great gift, an unforeseen one. In the context of COVID-19, my day job offered the opportunity work from home, making it possible to spend more time with Obi, our little one who is growing up fast. He seems to have gone from being a little human blob that didn’t move much to crawling everywhere and grabbing everything. We get to see him more, and see him interacting with his sisters, Rocky and Zoe (our fur babies) which is hilarious. We are actually so lucky.

Many people have lost their jobs. I grew up in Atlantic County (southern New Jersey) and my parents worked in the casino industry. They were the immigrants who worked really hard and saved every penny and sent their kids to college. The casinos are closed now, and who knows when or if they will recover. If the pandemic had happened while my parents were working and raising young children, my life might be very different than it is today. The effects of the economic crisis are not evenly shared in our communities, and are devastating to those who are most vulnerable. The food bank where I volunteered as a high school student recently made New York Times headlines as lines were so long they created traffic chaos. Meanwhile in Hawaii, thousands of people, close to 30% of the population, have lost their jobs as tourism has come to a complete halt.

Like I said, we are lucky. And so instead of focusing on the missed art opportunities, I’m trying to stay positive, continue creating and painting, and find ways to give back. For the next several months, I’m going to donate 20% of website sales to food banks and pantries in the two places I call home - Honolulu and South Jersey. For the month of May, I will be donating to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey. I still remember sorting through canned food and putting them in meal kits as a teenage volunteer, but not being able to comprehend the gravity of food scarcity or what it means to need help to feed your family.

I encourage you to find ways to support your community. Shop small businesses if you can. Donate time or food if you can. Or if you enjoy my art, help me keep my small art business going while also giving back. Your support, especially now, means so much. Mahalo.