PORTLAND, Ore. — Jan Dwyer has been painting for 48 years, she started when she was 12. She mainly paints plein air, meaning painting outdoors near her Northeast Portland home in the Sullivan's Gulch neighborhood.
"For me it's a very meditative," she said.
Recently she's focused more of her art indoors inside her small art studio at home. She says it started March 16, when she started hearing about the number of people with the coronavirus. So she came up with an idea to honor those that have died in Oregon from COVID-19.
"I just have to make these numbers just about the love and connection between people and the first thing I landed on was a heart."
At the time, only a small number of people had died in Oregon, but each day it continued to grow.
"My new little routine, check the paper, paint some hearts, take the dogs for a walk, hang some hearts."
The hearts are as unique as the person's life they represent. They are someone's grandmother, grandfather, dad, mom, sister or brother. They are all someone's loved one.
"The one thing that we can agree on is that love is a powerful force and that anybody that has lost somebody that they love, they're never quite the same again," she said.
As of Wednesday morning, Dwyer had painted 33 hearts on canvases. When she's finished, she pounds a nail into the siding of her front porch and hangs each up.
"As far as the permanent nail holes and stuff, to me that's so much less than the permanent changes that are happening in our society and certainly for the families who have lost somebody. I wish they had no more than a nail hole."
She says she loves painting and painting the hearts, but wishes she didn't have to paint any more. Wednesday afternoon, the Oregon Health Authority announced five more deaths related to COVID-19.
On Thursday, Dwyer will be back inside her studio and paint more hearts to hang on the outside of her house.
If you'd like to see more of Jan's work, you can follow her Facebook page.