Brent Smith has been drawing since he was a kid and has been working in the tattoo industry for close to 14 years.
Just two months after opening his first shop Fox Runner, the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to close.
“To have this happen… the timing was just terrible,” Smith said.
READ MORE: Who is Dr. Deena Hinshaw? Alberta’s chief medical officer of health
He was at home, searching for some sort of consistency, when he started listening to the daily news conferences with Alberta’s chief medical officer of health.
“Her updates kind of became that routine that I didn’t have anymore.”
He found Dr. Deena Hinshaw to be a unifying force. He imagined other Albertans across the province also tuning in.
“She has such a poised, calming effect on everybody,” Smith said. “It’s reassuring. She’s like Xanax for my ears.”
When a friend suggested he draw her, Smith was inspired — and not just by Hinshaw herself — but what she represents.
“Everything you want her to be she kind of is,” he explained. “I think… people don’t have a lot of trust in their elected officials right now.
“It’s a good feeling to know you can trust the person giving you the information… that somebody in charge has your best interest at heart.”
Hinshaw — and her steady, informed, unflappable delivery — has prompted other tributes, including a T-shirt with her likeness and a huge boost in orders of a Periodic Table dress she wore at one update.
“To her credit, she does not look shook at all. She looks calm and collected and she’s leading by example.”
Smith’s design is a little Joan of Arc inspired — warrior meets protector. There’s an Alberta flag, medical imagery and a little nod to his tattoo background: Hinshaw sports knuckle tattoos that read “Ever Help.”
“It summed up what I felt when I was drawing her,” Smith said. Having her draped in the colours of the province “was a no-brainer.”
Smith said many of his friends are nurses and he wanted to find a creative way to say “thank you” and “I’m thinking of you.”
He turned the Our Lady Hinshaw design into a sticker and gave them to the health-care workers he knew. The response was very positive. Some of them put them on their water bottles at work, he said.
READ MORE: Dr. Hinshaw asks people to show #AlbertaCares during COVID-19 pandemic
Then, word started to spread.
“I wasn’t really in the position to keep spending money on stickers to hand out,” Smith said. “A friend of mine, from River Valley Printing — a really good local business… he offered to put prints up for sale on his site. That gave me the money to get the stickers made.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, he’d made about 200 stickers.
Then, another iteration emerged. The Witchery reached out, asking if Smith would be interested in putting his design on some candles.
Fifteen per cent of each purchase of an Our Lady of Reason Vigil candle is donated to WIN House, a charity that helps women and children fleeing domestic abuse.
Smith has a feeling Alberta’s top doctor is aware of the artwork in her honour. He was told that someone who bought a print knows her well and has actually given her an Our Lady Hinshaw sticker.
Regardless, Smith just wanted to create something positive during a scary time.
“It makes me feel better,” he said.
“The amount of messages I’ve got from health-care workers… saying, ‘I like having this here’ or ‘It’s a nice reminder’ – that’s already worth it right there.”
And, the iterations might not be over just yet.
“Somebody sent me an email asking me if I’d be open to tattooing the design on them.”