ARTIST STATEMENT

I started cutting paper hearts in spring of 2020 to cope with the overwhelming grief I felt during the early pandemic days. Cutting hearts triggered memories of a high school trip to Hiroshima, Japan where I learned of the cultural tradition to fold and send origami peace cranes to the Children’s Peace Monument to honor Sadako Sasaki and the thousands of children who perished in the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Such acts carry a desire for peace and function to house memory of the tragic loss.

Through the daily meditation of cutting hearts, I came to see that one heart could represent a single person who died of COVID in Arkansas, and how these hearts could be a fitting analogue to those peace cranes. Both the Japanese peace cranes and the hearts function to honor those we lost and recall traumatic, life-changing events.

Once I began tallying hearts by the thousands, my spouse encouraged me to share my ideas and ask for help. As it turned out, those who volunteered felt the same way I did: cutting hearts became a way to get involved in a monumental act of remembrance.

~Monica Moore, Project Creator | Artistic Director