Whenever I’m invited to share the Kids & Art Foundation outside of the pediatric cancer realm, I cannot help but weigh my cancer journey as a caregiver, and my inherent personal loss, with our society’s need for ‘thinking big’.
In today’s world, everything has to be big. A big problem deploys a big solution. If you have an idea but it is not ‘big’ then don’t bother sharing it.
Same goes in the social impact sector. If you are going to take the time to volunteer, then make it count, correct? You have to be seen and heard in the right places and align yourself to something Big. Yes, there is hierarchy in ‘doing good’.
But the nonprofit leader in me, the designer in me, the mom in me asks, “is that the right path to making impact?”
So, my two cents to everyone who is looking for a “big” way to make a personal impact is this — every social cause has needs. Whether it is a large hospital or a grassroots organization like Kids & Art, each of us have problems that are mighty big for our size. The question you have to ask is, are your intentions mission aligned?
Bay Area Artist Neil Murphy said, “volunteering gives artists a chance to express and strengthen their ability to empathize by providing a community where kids, with the artist’s participation, are able to create an imaginative alternative to the difficult road their life experience has become”.
San Francisco based Tech Designer turned Artist and Author, Elle Luna said, “When kids come in and they make art, their experience ripples through their entire family”. When she hosted us, at her studio she said, “Bringing kids to create in my studio is one of my favorite things to do, we, as adults, have so much to learn from them. I had planned an agenda for our workshop, but what ended up happening is wild energy all over the space. In fact, the kids came in with their own agenda which was… to paint, paint and paint”.
When the artist is inspired by the patient’s art, we know we have stripped away all preconceived notions and blurred the lines of who is healing whom.
I never thought, when I started Kids & Art that I was seeking social change. I never thought, when I created our tagline, Cancer Sucks. Art Heals. that the healing and empowerment didn’t only apply to the patient but also to the artist. The powerful sense of being present and centered as the artists and patients work together is felt equally by both.
When I started Kids & Art in 2008 I thought I was doing it to help my three-year-old son Amaey occupy his time while we were in the waiting room and to help his six-year-old brother express his upside-down world through creation. Now, it will be eight years since Amaey passed away so I ask, what is an artists role in the healing chain? Does art matter and does it impact the overall treatment cycle?
I do not know what the “happiness meter” of patient satisfaction are on the days Kid & Art Foundation Artists bring their art experiences in the outpatient waiting room.
So we asked nurses to answer this for us…
I do not know what percentage of patients, siblings, and caregivers, are able to control their anxiety due to their cancer journey after creating with us.
So we asked caregivers to answer this for us…
When a small gesture of sitting next to a patient and creating art can have BIG outcomes, why do we still have to make a case about the need and the impact of healing through art?
When we bring our art workshops to the outpatient waiting rooms at UCSF Benioff Mission Bay and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford and receive feedback from a pediatric nurse provider that it is essential for kids with chronic conditions to receive art services on an ongoing basis, why is it difficult to get funding towards those programs? Has it got anything to do with the fact that we are only focusing on pediatric cancer and not thinking BIG and including all life threatening illnesses? Or is it because we aren’t expanding quickly to multiple hospitals?
Has it got anything to do with the fact that we are healing symptoms like anxiety, depression, and other emotional and psychological issues that come up from being a cancer patient or a cancer caregiver instead of putting all our energy into trying to eradicate the Big C word?
Or has it got nothing to do with this and on the contrary, hospitals small and large feel the need and are struggling and are equally frustrated with getting $$ assigned to psycho- social and therapeutic services?
Seems like together we all need to create an ecosystem that thinks about treating the ‘whole child’ and not just the diagnosis. Only then will BIG thought and BIG dollars be set aside for research pertaining to healing through arts and other healing modalities.
As a parent who has lived through the title of ‘cancer caregiver’, shuttled her child in and out of the oncology waiting room for six of his nine years, I do not need someone else’s approval to think about the big picture. I prefer to go with the saying, Kid tested, Mother Approved… With all the pain and loss that comes with the cancer diagnosis, if anything, anything at all can bring a moment of joy and a sense of accomplishment for these patients and siblings and caregivers, then that is a BIG accomplishment!
I still get taken aback by a bald head, my heart sinks when I see tubes hanging out of the kids, but I have to say that when I start creating with the kids…. They are not patients anymore, they have transformed into empowered creators. It is hard to express the feeling I get when the kids beam with pride at their works of art. For me, as a mother, artist, and just plain human being, volunteering my creativity is not about me “giving” but rather the BIG gift that I am fortunate to receive every time I create with these amaeyzing kids!
So is there anyone out there who is already doing research on the benefits of healing through art? Are there hospitals who would like to create greater patient satisfaction by offering healing art experiences in their oncology/hematology waiting rooms?
It is a big problem and we need to deploy a big solution. We have first hand experience and we want to hear from you and we want to work with you to lead this charter, because #CancerSucks #ArtHeals and #CreativityIsNotOptional.
All photographs are property of Kids & Art Foundation taken with permission of all the pediatric cancer families and hospital staff.
Kids & Art Foundation’s mission is to heal pediatric cancer through art by pairing up patients and their families with artists during treatment, as survivors, and in bereavement. Together we empower, encourage, and create memorable experiences.
