When a Los Angeles-based artist was looking for a way to give back and bring comfort to hospital workers in hard-hit areas of the pandemic, he turned to his canvas — and to flowers. The Washington Post recently detailed the flower-friendly goodwill gesture that has so far reached 1,800 frontline workers.

Earlier this month, Michael Gittes, a visual artist in Los Angeles whose work has been shown worldwide in galleries and museums, shipped 1,800 flower paintings across the country to the Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, which was devastated this spring by the pandemic. The donation meant that each worker at the medical center received a painting.

“I wanted every single employee — all 1,800 — to have a painting to show how much they are loved and appreciated,” Gittes told the Post. “It was the height of the crisis in New York, and I’d been talking to my fiancee about what a wild idea it is that people could be loved by so many and not necessarily be aware of it. We came up with the idea to give paintings to a hospital that was especially affected by COVID.”

Gittes spent about three months on the project, painting about 100 flowers a day. He chose flowers because he was looking for a metaphor for the community represented by the health care team and their relationship to the broader country. “I decided to paint flowers because even though these people are all part of a big beautiful garden, I wanted them to know they were all individual flowers, and without them, there would be no garden,” he explained.

Read more about the project. 

Beyond Gittes’ generous gift, the Society of American Florists has a full catalog of university research proving the emotional and physical health benefits of flowers, along with tips floral industry professionals can use to help communicate those study results to your local customers. Find out more.

Mary Wesbtrook is the editor in chief of Floral Management magazine.