His latest solo exhibition is titled “Flutterluster,” showing at Los Angeles gallery Matter Studio. It features large works that incorporate what Huss describes as a “fluttering line” that he’s been playing with ever since he was a child going on 50 years.
MORE Karla Funderburk of Matter Studio Gallery says she started this origami crane project to process the COVID-related grief she was feeling and witnessing. Photo by Memorial Crane Project.
It s been more than a year since LA County declared a state of emergency for COVID-19, and since then, more than 22,000 Angelenos have lost their lives to the virus. That means one in three residents here know someone who died or became seriously ill from COVID.
So how do you process all that pain and memorialize loved ones? Karla Funderburk, owner of Matter Studio Gallery, folded paper cranes and gathered thousands of them from people worldwide. Her Memorial Crane Project features tens of thousands of these origami long-necked, long-legged birds.
By Dr. Christine Ritchie’s estimate, about 2 million people in the United States are homebound, and an additional 5 million have trouble leaving home or need help doing so.
Yet those millions of people “tend to be
sort of invisible to society,” said Ritchie, a professor at Harvard Medical School.
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They can’t drive through mass vaccination sites or stand in line outside clinics. Even if they secure a coveted appointment spot, they can’t leave their house to get there.
Now there are doctors and nurses racing against traffic, inclement weather and a ticking clock to get to them.
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It was a nightly ritual for Karla Funderburk that began the second week of April. She watched in horror as news stories showed the scenes playing out in New York that eventually would spread across the country: Overflowing morgues. Refrigeration trucks pulling up behind hospitals. Despondent families unable to spend final moments with loved ones.
While she watched, she folded paper cranes and dropped them into a bag by her bed one crane for each person who had died from COVID-19.
“I started just for myself,” the Los Angeles art gallery owner said. “It was a way for me to process.”