ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Bernie Brooks spent over three decades working on her bed and breakfast business. She enjoyed it, but it took her away from her passion. She recently went back to painting after 25 years away from the craft.
“It was something that became very meaningful to me,” said Brooks, who began painting at five.
Brooks was invited by a friend to check out a Facebook group started by St. Pete woman Margaret Bayalis. In October, Bayalis shared her mission with 10 Tampa Bay. She had begun painting portraits of people who had died with COVID-19 and offered them for free.
At the time, she was finishing her third portrait.
“I feel like I’m doing something positive for my community,” she said then.
In just a few months’ time, her decision to honor loved ones lost to the pandemic has inspired other painters across the nation.
“This project has made me both a better painter and a better person. It has given me the opportunity to serve families during this difficult time and to hone my skills by painting a wide variety of subjects," said Ann Hayes of Seaside Park, N.J. “Long after the crisis of COVID-19 has passed these families will have these tangible renderings of their loved one, and know someone they have never met cared about their loss and sought to honor them. I hope they find comfort in this connection.”
New Jersey families can find Hayes’ work on her New Jersey Facebook page. Over 125 members make up Bayalis’ Faces Not Numbers Facebook group.
She started it in January and it quickly grew. Dozens of portraits painted by those members fill the Facebook feed. Each has warm eyes and a smile.
“So many of us are fortunate but there are a lot of people out there suffering,” said Brooks. “I know that people die, but not so many in a short time from the same thing.”
According to Johns Hopkins University, 530,179 Americans have died after testing positive for COVID-19. The paintings are the faces that are often forgotten in a time of endless statistics and CDC forecasts. The pandemic has touched Brooks’ family.
“It puts a face on this tragedy,” she said.
Her daughter knows six people who have died after contracting the virus.
“They contacted relatives of these people to send me photographs,” said Brooks, who lives in Lake Placid, N.Y. “From the photograph, I kind of enhance it. I started doing the portraits in watercolor.”
That’s exactly what Bayalis was hoping for when she started painting in the small studio in the front of her home. It’s grown into a national agreement to share art skills to uplift those who are hurting.
“These are special keepsakes that people will have all their lives to remember and honor the people that they’ve lost in their families,” she said.
Brooks has done two paintings so far. Bayalis is up over 50 portraits and has around a dozen requests to fulfill. If you would like a painting of your loved one who was lost to COVID-19, email Bayalis at margaret@bayalistudio.com.
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