Families explore their creativity and leave with more than paint on canvas
Thanks to donors, stress-reducing art workshops help kids with cancer
“This is so relaxing! I don’t know why I don’t do it more often.”
This July, Cancer Services provided families the opportunity to enjoy creating art together. Facilitators Nancy Rhee and Lauren Vanderhorst guided children with cancer, their siblings, and adult caretakers through two art projects.
Rhee was inspired by the work of Italian Renaissance artist Guiseppe Arcimboldo. After a brief lesson introducing everyone to Arcimboldo and his art, Rhee instructed attendees to arrange fresh fruit into a human portrait. They then drew a still life of their fruit portraits using colored pencils. Moving forward, Rhee wanted the families to see joy and delight in unexpected places. She said, “Life isn’t always the way it appears. Out of chaos, surprise, joy and laughter can emerge.”
Vanderhorst guided attendees step-by-step on how to paint koi fish in a pond. As they painted, the group reflected on the meaning of hope and picked an important person in their life for the fish to represent. Vanderhorst shared that many attendees painted a school of fish to represent their families. She encouraged everyone to get creative by picking their own colors and rearranging the elements of the pond. Vanderhorst explained, “I wanted the kids and parents to find joy in the process of creating a painting…There are times when your painting is not going how you want it to. But pushing through and working with your mistakes will create lovely results.”
Attendees proudly display their completed artwork. You helped make the smiles on their faces happen!
Creative expression can be hugely beneficial to cancer survivors. A 2013 review of clinical trials found that studies typically showed engaging in creative arts reduced anxiety, depression, and pain and improved quality of life for people with cancer (Puetz, Morley, & Herring, Effects of Creative Arts Therapies on Psychological Symptoms and Quality of Life in Patients With Cancer, published in JAMA Internal Medicine). Artistic endeavors also give people with cancer an opportunity to express their emotions, journey, and challenges without using words. It can offer a sense of control at a time when they feel like their diagnosis, doctors, and treatment schedule is in charge (Cultivating Connections: The Role Creative Expression Plays in the Brain Tumor Community, published by National Brain Tumor Society at braintumor.org).
According to the National Brain Tumor Society, creative expression can also help caregivers. Caregivers experience many challenges while caring for a loved one with cancer that leave them feeling anxious, depressed, and not in control of their lives.
To offer access to these benefits to people with cancer in our community, Cancer Services of Northeast Indiana has offered art workshops regularly for years. Workshops explore a variety of media, including watercolor, acrylics, photography, sketching, poetry, and most recently, calligraphy.
A girl works diligently on her koi fish painting.
As hoped, not only the children enjoyed the session. Parents also appreciated the time. One of the attending mothers told Rhee, “This is so relaxing! I don’t know why I don’t do this more often.”
On the surface, Family Art for the Heart was just a fun day for kids with cancer to spend time with their families. But on a deeper level, the event gave children and parents a chance to relax, to be themselves, and to make something they could be proud of. There’s no overestimating what an amazing impact this opportunity had on the families who joined us.
Your financial support makes programs like Family Art for the Heart possible. Thank you for caring about the mental and emotional wellness of people impacted by cancer.
