“Mens sana in corpores sanum,” ran the ancient Roman motto – “A healthy mind in a healthy body.” And though that is usually taken to refer to an ideal to be constantly maintained, sometimes it is necessary to use one aspect of general health to achieve the other, especially when children are concerned.
That at least is the philosophy of Arts for Healing, a joint program of the Mill Street Loft art center and Vassar Brothers Medical Center which uses participatory creative activity in the arts to help seriously ill children cope with the hardships of medical treatment and renew in them and their families a positive attitude towards life, despite current stresses.
“Any healing process, physical or psychological, really starts when people feel better about themselves,” says Carole J. Wolf, the executive director of Mill Street Loft. “When you feel down, everything comes down. The arts are the universal language, and everybody has a creative potential. This program harnesses that talent to the service of the healing process, and we have seen that it has had a profound effect on helping children feel and get better. Instead of focusing on the fear and anxiety of medical treatment, children with illnesses as serious as cancer, diabetes, cycle cell anemia, and AIDS actually come to look forward to the treatment sessions, because they are times of joyous creativity as well.”
Started two years ago by the two institutions and now funded in part by the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation, the Arts For Healing program sends artists from the Loft to the hospital on a weekly basis for three hours. They work on creative projects with the kids at a time before their treatment is scheduled, and when it has been completed, the children return to their artwork, as if the medical aspect is merely an interruption in a day dedicated to creativity.
The goal is to reduce the anxiety associated with medical procedures, make things comfortable for the patients, and make the visit to the medical center something they look forward to.
“Our first project was making quilt squares,” says Katie Rapp, the case manager in pediatrics at Vassar Brothers Medical Center. “We eventually sewed them all together into a beautiful quilt that now hangs at the end of our unit. We used to have a quiet waiting room, with children somberly awaiting treatment. Now it’s bursting with life. The kids love it, they’re excited. They can’t wait to get out of the doctor’s office to get back to whatever project they’re doing.”
Out and about
The Arts For Healing sessions are not limited to the medical center, and they do not always take place in conjunction with medical treatment. Last week a throng of excited and seemingly vigorous kids could be seen at the Loft, being instructed in drawing, calligraphy, origami and suminagashi, a medieval Japanese technique that uses ink floated on water to color paper with a marbling effect.
“I have a very special art to teach you,” Christine DeMarco, an artist who specializes in paper arts and who besides Arts For healing is part of the Loft’s Girls Empowerment program, told the kids. “In 900 A.D. a man in Japan discovered this amazing way of coloring paper through the mediums of ink and water. This is an art from the East, not a Western art. In the East, they allow the elements themselves to be part of the art, as you’ll see.”
As the children watched, DeMarco delicately placed pinpricks of black ink on the surface of water gathered in a pan, guiding them into gentle swirls. After further adding green and red coloring, which created lager, more solid areas, she placed a piece of paper on the surface. Suddenly lifting it, she held up a sheet that had been instantly transformed into a work of art.
Then the kids eagerly followed to sit at their own pans, DeMarco drifting from child to child to guide them as patiently as she had the ink swirls.
“It’s cool,” said Ian, 12, as he worked his swirls. “The program is cool too. They work with disabled kids, and it makes them feel better.”
“It’s good,” said Sabrina, 8, similarly conflating the art and the program. “Everything turns out beautiful, and it’s a lot of fun.”
“These kids become like our own family,” says Joan Henry, the artistic director of Arts For Healing. “We see them all the time. There’s nothing harder than seeing kids in pain, and this gives them a chance to say something you can’t say in words, and find a way to normalcy.”