A series of coloring book pages by local artists will be released weekly, every Wednesday, from the Arts Council for Long Beach, highlighting the city’s essential workers and all they do to keep residents safe and healthy.
Vietnamese American artist Dan Nguyen was commissioned to create two pages for the initial release on April 8, showing an EMS worker and a grocery store employee in action. Nguyen said his pages were inspired by friends and family, people he personally knows working on the frontlines.
“I thought about those who toil day and night to keep the system running for the rest of us during these trying times,” he said.
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The composition, illustration and clothing styles of his characters uphold a contemporary view of the traditional coloring book, he “chose an ‘urban’ perspective, to highlight the fact that this pandemic affects us all, no matter if you’re young or old, rich or poor.”
“We want to illuminate the unseen heroes in Long Beach doing the work every day to keep the city functioning and ensuring that everyone has access to food, care, resources and information,” said Executive Director Griselda Suarez in a statement. “We are stronger and safer because of them.”
This Wednesday, portraits of Long Beach Beer Lab owners Levi Fried and Harmony Sage by artist Alex Diffin will be released. Diffin said she immortalized the two in coloring page format because they’re “doing really amazing things during this time.”
Long Beach Beer Lab now offers some of the items they normally purchase wholesale to the community; anyone can fill out the online form to place an order and then pick it up.
“I think it’s such a wonderful act to be able to supply the community with things that are becoming hard to find like flour, eggs, rice, and milk in a fashion that allows for minimal exposure to other people and doesn’t require a line around the block,” said Diffin.
Fried and Sage have also implemented a program where patrons can pay it forward by buying a healthcare worker a coffee, pastry or bread from their Bread Lab Cafe on MemorialCare’s campus.
New pages to download and color will be released every Wednesday for at least the next 15 weeks, at 12 p.m. on the Arts Council’s website at artslb.org.
If you don’t have a printer at home, LBUSD students issued Chromebooks by the district can use Chrome Canvas to color the pages, said ACLB Director of Programs Lisa DeSmidt. Sketchbook is also a free app with coloring tools that can be used on a phone or tablet.
The coloring pages are a part of the ACLB’s “Keep Arts Working” campaign, an effort to not only alleviate some of the anxiety involved with the COVID-19 pandemic through art but to keep the creative economy alive.
“Keep Arts Working” involves nightly engagements broadcasted on ACLB’s social media channels, on Instagram @artslb, Twitter @artscouncil4lb and Facebook at Arts Council for Long Beach. Learn more at artslb.org/keepartsworking.