• ArtsCare
• Helping Students
• Speakers Bureau
• Workshops
• Professional Assistance

Serious illness leaves no room for false agendas or posturing, it makes people hungry for joy, hungry for meaningful human contact. And making art can satisfy that hunger. But for many adults, art is little more than the distant memory of the smell of crayons. When we show up with our brushes and paints, or fabrics and ribbons, or journals and pens, we open a door for our "students" that has often been closed for a very long time. We help them re-discover the satisfaction of creating something uniquely their own, we go through that door with them as we help them succeed, sharing in their excitement and sense of accomplishment, that "Look what I made!" moment.

Even small, simple craft projects can have a huge impact. The reward for me is often the second or third session, when people tell me about the reaction of their loved ones when they presented them with their creations. This last month, Mary and I helped an elderly dialysis patient paint and decorate a valentine box for his wife, who is an Alzheimer's patient. He squeezed back tears when he told me about her opening the box and finding the "I love you" he had written inside the lid. She told him, "This is the most beautiful valentine I've ever gotten." Priceless.

ArtsCare is an innovative program that places artists in medical environments to enhance healing by helping patients, their families, and medical staff express and create through the arts. As more people see what a difference the arts can make in healing, the demand to expand our ArtsCare programs increases.

Here are a few recent project updates:

• Three artists were added to our core group and they all look terrific. Julie Davis, a strings player, will be shadowing our other musician Kathy Morris for a while to get a sense of things; Holly Dubrasich is a potter from Lebanon, whose work we already know from our shop. She's been sitting in on our Cancer Survivor workshops and will be taking a month at Pastega House. And last but not least, the wonderful Jennifer Smith, a multi-talented visual artist, will also begin at Pastega House this spring.
• We now have artists working at Mario Pastega House. Each artist takes one month, coming twice on alternating Wednesday evenings from 6:30 - 8 p.m. So far we have the next 3 months lined up: Kerry McFall (Feb), Ella Rhoades (Mar), and Jennifer Smith (April). The artists are responsible for coming up with non-threatening art projects, very much like what we do at the Cancer Center, for those patients and their families who are staying temporarily at Pastega.
• Ella Rhoades completed work with another group of patients who come for regular treatments at the Ambulatory Infusion unit at Good Sam. These are folks receiving chemo or other drugs for various illnesses. Ella has devised a whimsical "Healing Road" mural out of mosaic glass and tiles. Patients taking part helped to make some of the road or scenery when they came in for weekly treatments. We also secured some wonderful artwork for the treatment room walls. Our own Kitty Bunn has a piece that was purchased for this unit.
• Kitty Bunn was chosen as this year's Patron of the Arts at the annual Celebrate Corvallis event held the end of January. There were many great candidates this year, but none more deserving than Kitty.
• Another exciting prospect for ArtsCare is an invitation to begin work in two Mental Health units, also at Good Sam. Mary is in contact with Jenny Brandenburg, Rec Therapist, to set up a schedule and artists. Jennifer Smith will create a soft sculpture workshop there at the end of March. She plans to do weekly classes for a three-month trial period.
• Lyn Jones, MSW for the Dialysis Units at Good Sam and Lebanon, recently invited her equivalent from Albany's dialysis site to visit while ArtsCare artists worked with patients. She was quite impressed and is bringing this idea to her supervisors.
• The last ArtsCare Advisory group meeting met at Albany General Hospital on Feb. 15. Sara Swanberg attended. The next meeting will be back at Lebanon Community Hospital.
  
  For more information or to get involved in supporting ArtsCare, contact Mary Van Denend (mary@theartscenter.net) or Sara Swanberg (sara@theartscenter.net).
  
  For more information about the range of work being done in this field, please take a look at the web site for The Society for the Arts in Health Care, based in Washington D.C. for the express purpose of assisting organizations wishing to establish or advance the arts in health care settings. Though the use of arts in health care settings is still relatively new and innovative, great strides have been made in the last fifteen years in recognizing the crucial role that arts can play in healing processes. (www.societyartshealthcare.org)