A laughing group of people collaborated on collages that circulated around two long tables. Torn-up magazine pages toppled off the tables as the collages filled up.
“You can tear pictures off,” said Elif Akcali, UF associate professor of industrial and systems engineering. “You can put your own pictures on. You can cover someone else’s picture.”
Everyone was distracted from his or her own sickness. A Creative for Health workshop was in full swing.
Creative for Health workshops allow those affected by cancer to express themselves through various art mediums. The group meets Thursday at 5:30 p.m. in Room 1302 of the Criser Cancer Resource Center.
“We’re here to help humanize the health care environment,” said Dylan Klempner, artist in residence at UF Health Shands Hospital and organizer of the workshops. Shands’ artist in residence program aims to bring art directly to the patient.
“What I want people to do is come in the door and get lost in the act of creating and let whatever is in their hearts and minds just flow from there,” Klempner said.
When people come to the hospital, they need to be cured. They don’t get to choose what or when they eat nor what they wear. They’re told what medicine to take and when. They give up control for the healing process, Klempner said.
“They give up the elements of control that define them as individuals,” he said. “The artist comes to the bedside and helps them in a journey that helps them get control of their lives back in a small way.”
In her collage workshop, Akcali shared the works of Henri Matisse, Carla Accardi and other famous artists who influenced her own collages. Small snippets of magazines from her previous projects fell out of the art books as she held them in front of the group.
“Collage is very freeing,” she said. “You just cut and paste. It is very free-form.”
Art has helped free Akcali from the areas of stress in her own life.
“I walked into my class today and realized I forgot the papers on my desk,” she said. “Five years ago, I would have had a heart attack. A disruption would happen, and I wouldn’t be prepared with how to deal with it, but today … I said, ‘OK, well I forgot the quiz problems, so why don’t you write a new quiz altogether and go.’ It’s made me take life as it comes.”
Burt Kempner, 65, of Gainesville, worked with the Arts in Medicine program in the past doing oral histories.
As a former volunteer, he understands the significance of bringing art to patients.
“I saw the difference it makes in their lives,” he said. “The chance to talk or do something not related to their disease … is a respite for some.”
A version of this story ran on page 9 on 10/10/2013 under the headline "Art workshops help UF Health patients cope, grow"
Attendees of the Shands Arts in Medicine Creative for Health workshop cut and paste magazine clips to make abstract collages.
