Creative medicine: Art helps participants heal, grow

LORETTO -- About 80 works of participants in Arts for Healing, a 20-year partnership between the Southern Alleghenies of Art and Conemaugh Medical Center, are on display at the museum through July 9.

"Our Arts for Healing is one of our most cherished programs offered to our region. It serves to help individuals dealing with various forms of acute and chronic illness," stated Kristin Miller, site director and education coordinator. The exhibit is entitled "Arts for Healing: Life Dance 2023" and is displayed on the museum's second floor. The works were done under the guidance of teaching artist Evgeny Krayuskin during 2022.

"It is always a pleasure to create these residencies and place these exhibitions! I'm always delighted and overwhelmed to see the diligence, determination, and love that each artist puts into every piece," Miller said.

The exhibit features a variety of techniques and media and shows several selections from each program participant.

Arts in Healing participant Patti Kristoff, 67, of Johnstown has been developing her artistic side for six years through the program, which has helped her "in many ways" and "has changed my life." Formerly afraid of art due to a past negative experience, she said she joined the program at the suggestion of a friend in a chronic pain support group.

"I've become decent and I've gotten better" at art, Kristoff said. "You focus on creating the art and the techniques and you forget about your pain, your depression or your anxiety. It takes your mind off of it. Over the years, I've become more creative with other things," including a monthly card ministry. She creates and mails cards to about 50 people a month.

The process of creating, combined with the act of self expression, are keys to the program's success, said Barbara Duryea, a wellness advocate who helped co-found the program. By "creating" participants -- some who have lost the ability to speak due to a stroke or other medical issue --may more effectively express and process emotions and feelings. Some research indicates that engaging in art activities activates certain areas in the brain and helps to foster positive feelings thereby decreasing sensations of discomfort, organizers said in a release.

Twenty years ago, Duryea was the director of Conemaugh's research and development division and started the program with then SAMA executive director Michael Tomar.

"One of the very first sessions was with polio survivors. We wanted to look at a patient population that was underserved. We provided for them to spend time with professional artists and that's the most unique part of the program. This isn't an arts and crafts activity. They work with very high level, credentialed artists who take them through the artistic process. It's never about the product that they produce. It's always about the process."

In the years since, the program has worked with various patient populations from those undergoing physical rehabilitation to those with anxiety, depression and other mental health issues.

Duryea estimates the Arts in Healing program has had more than 200 individual participants.

Each 10-week session accommodates 15 people. Some participants have been with the program since inception and some participate intermittently as their health permits.

Kristoff joined after hearing about its benefits at a chronic pain support group six years ago.

Kristoff said she has seven different and invisible health conditions which bring her emotional and physical pain that turns her into a "mere shell." So, she turns to art to rediscover her "usual, happy, fun-loving self. Arts for healing turns me into the real me."

For many participants in the Arts for Healing program, Duryea said, "their identity is tied up in a diagnosis for which there is no cure. It consumes them. So when they become engaged in the artistic process they are able to see themselves in a different light because they are no longer condition XYZ or chronic pain defining them. They're absorbed in the process."

Duryea recalled one past participant who had suffered a stroke and was creating a large painting of a lamp, but the lamp was painted sharply angled to the right. Curious, she asked him why and he shared that it was how he saw everything as a consequence of his stroke.

Each artist shares their professional expertise with participants. One wood sculptor also blended his love of folk music into his sessions.

"It's an example of what art can do for anyone. Art really has healing qualities. You don't have to be an artist to benefit from the power of art," Duryea said.