Essential Workers – Covid-19 Virus

Original pastels and giclée prints are available.

Original pastel on paper, 20″ x 29″, framed $1,125

Giclée prints:
22″ x 30″ unframed – $350 shipped
12″ x 16.5″ unframed – $250 shipped

Book of all 100 pastels $40 (+ $5.00 shipping USA)

To order contact manager@lizzards.com or call 218-722-5815

Grocery Store Cashier and Bagger – Essential Worker Portrait #1
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Bus Driver – Essential Worker Portrait #2
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Pharmacy Counter Worker and Pharmacists
Essential Worker Portrait #3
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
USPS Mail Carrier – Essential Worker Portrait #4
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Hospital Workers- Doctors, Nurses and Janitors – Essential Worker Portrait #5
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Farm Workers -Vegetable and Fruit Pickers – Essential Worker Portrait #6
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
First Responders –Pietà of the Uninsured – Essential Workers Portrait #7
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Sanitation Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #8
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Home Health Care Worker – Essential Worker Portrait #9
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Band Teacher Repairing Student’s Instrument
Essential Worker Portrait #10
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Mass Transportation Disinfection Worker – Essential Worker Portrait #11
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Truck Driver – Essential Worker Portrait #12
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Grocery Cart Disinfection Worker – Essential Worker Portrait #13
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Hospital Laundry Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #14
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Food Shelf Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #15
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
USPS Postal Carrier – Essential Worker Portrait #16
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Food Preparation Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #17
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Bicycle Food Delivery Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #18
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Child Care Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #19
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Election Judges– Essential Worker Portrait #20
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Greenhouse Workers– Essential Worker Portrait #21
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Protesters – Essential Worker Portrait #22
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Disaster Clean-up Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #23
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Convenience Store Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #24
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Grocery Store Shelf Stocker – Essential Worker Portrait #25
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
CNA Worker – Essential Worker Portrait #26
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Warehouse Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #27
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
White Coats for Black Lives – Essential Worker Portrait #28
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
USPS Mail Carrier and Mail Truck– Essential Worker Portrait #29
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Curbside Delivery Worker – Essential Worker Portrait #30
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Essential Workers Ride Mass Transportation to Work – Essential Worker Portrait #31
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
PlumberEssential Worker Portrait #32
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Morticians at Drive Through Grave site Memorial-Essential Worker Portrait #33
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Drive Through Covid-19 Community Testing WorkersEssential Worker Portrait #34
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Scientists-Essential Worker Portrait #35
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
ER Medical Workers-Nurses, Doctors and Secretaries-Essential Worker Portrait #36
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Auto Repair Technicians – Essential Worker Portrait #37
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Sewing Machine Repair Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #38
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Laundromat Worker – Essential Worker Portrait #39
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Janitors and Teachers – Essential Worker Portrait #40
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Teachers – Essential Worker Portrait #41
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
School Bus Drivers – Essential Worker Portrait #42
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
School Food Service Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #43
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
School Public Health Monitors – Essential Worker Portrait # 44
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Fire Fighters – Essential Worker Portrait # 45
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Street Utility Worker – Essential Worker Portrait #46
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Utility Truck Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #47
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Art Teacher – Essential Worker Portrait #48
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Grocery and Supply Delivery – Essential Worker Portrait #49
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Voters – Essential Worker Portrait #50
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Building Maintenance Worker – Essential Worker Portrait #51
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Nurses – Essential Worker Portrait #52
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Journalist for Alternative Weekly Publications
Essential Worker Portrait #53
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Independent Journalist  – Essential Worker Portrait #54
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Occupancy Counter  – Essential Worker Portrait #55
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Meat Processing Plant Worker  – Essential Worker Portrait #56
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Carpenters  – Essential Worker Portrait #57
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
EMTs and Ambulance Drivers  – Essential Worker Portrait #58
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Mental Health Doctors and Counselors  – Essential Worker Portrait #59
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Egg Packers  – Essential Worker Portrait #60
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Snow Removal Workers  – Essential Worker Portrait #61
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Veterinarians – Essential Worker Portrait #62
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
IT Specialists  – Essential Worker Portrait #63
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Personal Shopper  – Essential Worker Portrait #64
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Mobile Morgue Worker  – Essential Worker Portrait #65
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Healthcare and Mobile Morgue Workers  – Essential Worker Portrait #66
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Day Care Workers for Essential Worker’s Families  – Essential Worker Portrait #67
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Snow Plow Drivers – Essential Worker Portrait #68
2020 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Take Out Restaurant Kitchen Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #69
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Soup & Sandwich Kitchen Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #70
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Doctors Getting Vaccinated – Essential Worker Portrait #71
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Grocery Store Workers Getting Vaccinated – Essential Worker Portrait #72
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Teachers Getting Vaccinated – Essential Worker Portrait #73
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Bus Drivers Getting Vaccinated – Essential Worker Portrait #74
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Farm Workers – Vegetable and Fruit Pickers Getting Vaccinated
Essential Worker Portrait #75
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Teacher Aides – Essential Worker Portrait #76
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Dental Hygienists and Dentists – Essential Worker Portrait #77
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Store Clerk – Essential Worker Portrait #78
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Construction Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #79
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Steelworkers – Essential Worker Portrait #80
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Building Trades – Essential Worker Portrait #81
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
School Nurse – Essential Worker Portrait #82
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Waiting in Line at the Mall to Get Vaccinated – Essential Worker Portrait #83
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
School Secretary – Essential Worker Portrait #84
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Food Truck Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #85
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Drive-up Food Distribution Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #86
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Walk-up Food Distribution Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #87
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Sign Language Interpreters – Essential Worker Portrait #88
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Greenhouse Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #89
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ original sold/giclée available
Middle School Band Teacher Directing Outdoor Music Concert
Essential Worker Portrait #90
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Taxi Drivers – Essential Worker Portrait #91
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Hotel Cleaners – Essential Worker Portrait #92
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Train Platform Cleaners – Essential Worker Portrait #93
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Roadside Vegetable Stand Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #94
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Bakery Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #95
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Drive-up Delivery Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #96
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Social Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #97
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Appliance Repair Workers – Essential Worker Portrait #98
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Greengrocer Delivery Worker – Essential Worker Portrait #99
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available
Clinic Medical Escorts – Essential Worker Portrait #100
2021 pastel on paper 20″ x 29″ $1,125 framed/giclée available

PBS Newshour CANVAS May 19,2020 Written by Joshua Barajus
…”Workers take every precaution to keep themselves and others safe from the coronavirus in Carolyn Olson’s pastel drawings.
Farmworkers wear face masks and gloves while picking vegetables and fruits. A grocery store worker wipes down shopping carts with disinfectant. A janitor pushes a cleaning cart full of supplies past doctors and nurses at a hospital. Since March, the artist from Duluth, Minnesota, has been paying tribute to all kinds of workers deemed essential during the pandemic.
For their sake, Olson wants the rest of us to do better.
These same workers, unable to work from home, have to come into close contact with scores of people every day. And social distancing isn’t always an option, depending on the work site. In Olson’s first drawing in the series, a child, also wearing gloves and a mask, is within touching distance of a grocery store cashier.
For months, labor advocates have raised alarms about the ways essential workers face heightened risks because of exposure to the virus, but also from complications that could arise from low wages and lack of affordable health insurance.
Olson, a recently retired public school teacher, said the series was inspired by conversations with her two children — one a grocery store cashier, the other a middle school music teacher — about how they are navigating the risks of exposure. Her son, the teacher, is able to stay home from school, but also works at a restaurant and bar as another source of income. That business plans on reopening in June.
“As a parent, I’m just panicked about my kids and panicked about the neighbor’s kids. That’s no way to live,” she told the PBS NewsHour.
That anxiety helped fuel her desire to capture workers’ stories, heard from family and friends or the news. There are so many stories that Olson, a longtime painter, turned into pastels, partly because she’s able to produce more images more quickly than if she were working with oil or gouache….”

Star Tribune May 12, 2020 Written by Richard Chin
“….The Historical Society also recently purchased a pastel drawing by Duluth artist Carolyn Sue Olson depicting a scene in a grocery store in which everyone is wearing masks and gloves.
In a description on the Historical Society’s History Is Now website, Olson said the drawing was inspired by her daughter’s job as a grocery store cashier in the Twin Cities.
It’s the first in a series of pieces Olson is creating called “Essential Workers,” depicting bus drivers, mail carriers, doctors, nurses, janitors, farm workers and trash collectors on the job during the pandemic.
The image of people wearing masks to perform an everyday task “was such a profound piece,” said Historical Society art curator Brian Szott, who said he could envision the drawing being used in a history book years from now. “This is an image that suddenly has entered our consciousness,” he said.”…

Not Leaving the Essential Workers Behind: The Work of Artist Carolyn S. Olson – East Side Freedom Library , November 1, 2022 Written by Jim McKenzie
Essential workers, a term bred by the pandemic itself, deliver what matters most for the ongoing comforting and indeed essential flow of our lives: food, health, safety, sanitation, transportation, basic utilities, much of it visible on the humble city streets of Olson’s world. She shows us “School Food Service Workers,” “Sanitation Workers,” “Warehouse Workers,” a “Laundromat Worker,”—so many fellow citizens whose work the pandemic forced us to recognize is essential. Some even took to calling them heroes, and temporarily paid a little more for their labor. 

Workday Magazine , “It’s Your Job to Die” , December 2022 Written by Amie Stager
“The pursuit of political truth is never a one-time arrival point, but rather, something an artist must belabor again and again with each new iteration expanding on the previous and informing the next.”

Eastside Freedom Library, November 2022 Panel Discussion with Essential Workers

Eastside Freedom Library, November 2022 Artist+Activist discussion with Keith Christensen and Carolyn Olson

PBS Newshour CANVAS, June 17, 2020, Reported by Jeff Brown
American artists of all kinds are responding to the pandemic with new creations. As Jeffrey Brown reports, the art can serve as both a call to action and a means of healing — for maker and audience alike. The story is part of our ongoing arts and culture series, Canvas. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/connecting-through-art-when-a-pandemic-keeps-us-apart

Perfect Duluth Day Written by Brian Barber
Carolyn Olson (featured previously in Selective Focus) has been redirecting her work a bit. Still focused on everyday scenes, she has been making drawings in a series she’s calling Essential Workers. These scenes are in grocery stores, public transit, street scenes and in medical facilities. This week, Carolyn talks about honoring these people who keep things going in unprecedented circumstances.

Professional photography was made possible through the “Emergency Working Artist Project Grant” provided through the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council. ARAC’s funding is derived from appropriations from the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the State’s general fund and Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund (Legacy Amendment) as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota. 
Carolyn Olson is a fiscal year 2021 recipient of a Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. Professional photography was made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.