A local artist is using a colourful tool to spread positivity throughout Chatham-Kent during the COVID-19 crisis.
Messages and hashtags have been popping up on buildings and houses within the municipality thanks to Mark Reinhart and some rolls of duct tape.
Reinhart said once the "COVID reality started to sink in" he and a peer of his, Rebecca Haskell-Thomas, came up with an idea to use the hashtag #BeApartStayTogetherCK as a way to promote social distancing while also keeping community members connected.
"When in doubt, I always turn to art as a way to help make sense of any kind of reality," he said during an interview with Mike Regnier on CFCO on Thursday. "Particularly this one, it felt like it needed a little bit of extra help to make sense of."
Reinhart said he started with the Civic Centre in Chatham and from there, his canvasses changed.
"I started taping messages on municipal buildings and then the library jumped on board -- they're always eager to do something innovative -- and it spun from there," said Reinhart.
The idea also caught on with many homeowners, as Reinhart said he has been getting requests to create positive messages on actual residences.
"It's been an interesting way to document the way that Chatham-Kent is making sense of this and to document it specifically through public art," he said. "It has really evolved and it's a community collaborative piece."
Residents are being encouraged to share their own creative or inspirational artistic creations by posting them to social media with the hashtag #BeApartStayTogetherCK.
"Once it pops up on the internet, we'll have this document that shows all of the different ways that people are being creative," he said.
