Click to view “Loving Hands”
click to view “Happy Art”
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Simple Watercolors is a painting workshop at the Cancer Community Center that offers a nurturing studio environment for adventurous painters at any skill level. Located in South Portland, the CCC offers support, information and a sense of place to adults affected by cancer through a variety of free wellness programs and special events.
Art HOPE offers a variety of creativity workshops in collaboration with schools, health organizations, and arts groups in Maine. Offered for free to participants, the experiential programs use simple art mediums in both independent and group art-making activities, and speak to how creativity can enhance health and well being, celebrate living, and inspire healing opportunities for people everyday.
Art HOPE Creativity Project involves youth artists volunteering with schools and arts groups in Maine to make art for people living with cancer or other long-term illness. Artists, grades K through 12, create “Happy Art” cards and origami “Cranes of HOPE”, which are given to oncology patients and their caregivers at local hospitals. “Happy Art” is a successful youth arts outreach program that was first developed in 2005 in collaboration with the University of Maine Extension 4-H, as a dynamic youth service project that is in the spirit of the group’s motto, “Head, Hearts, Hands, and Health”. The innovative model is a cornerstone of Art HOPE youth program activities, inspiring both those who make the art and those who receive it. Through this work, young participants learn that their creative expression can help uplift others and make a positive impact in the community. The Creativity Project collaborators include faculty, interns, and students from Berwick Academy and York High School. A goal of the project is to integrate youth involvement in the arts and health care through service work at a local level. Cancer survivors and their families also participate with young volunteer Art HOPE artists in a variety of community arts programs and events.
Community Arts
Creativity Retreats at Waterfall Arts are summer arts and healing workshops, held at a stunning natural location in Montville, which once housed the original Haystack School of Crafts. Waterfall Arts is a community arts organization that offers intergenerational programs in harmony with nature, located in mid-coast Maine at the historic rural site in Montville and in Belfast at the former Governor’s School on High Street.
Sea Water Studio is held on Ogunquit Beach in August, providing participants a beautiful Maine seaside retreat that is spiritually and visually inspiring. Fresh air watercolor techniques and a conversation about creativity are presented in a relaxed group gathering. The program is a special treat for those living with cancer that can be shared with family and friends.
Arts in Healthcare Programs are developed and facilitated by Art HOPE Artist-in-residence, Laura Jaquays, and include a variety of free community arts and wellness programs in collaboration with healthcare organizations in Maine. Workshop activities are designed to reduce stress and promote creative self-expression, and are customized for groups of participants focusing on support for cancer, mental health, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, hospice, and caregivers. Art HOPE programs bring people together in a group art process that provides tools for developing healthy creative activity, while prompting recognition and appreciation of what is already creative in life. “Recipe for Well Being: Everyday Creativity” is a popular workshop that explores a creative wellness model which speaks to nine common aspects of daily living, including mental, physical, spiritual, environmental, community, home, language, visual, and sound. “Loving Hands” is a on-going healing arts project that began in 2009 with Hospice of York , supported by a grant from the Maine Community Foundation Hospice Fund, that brings creative expression to those at the end of life and their loved ones. The “Loving Hands” are images made by participants who have painted and imprinted their hands as part of a process for storytelling and creating memories. Laura is the Art HOPE, Artist-in-residence at York Hospital Oncology and Infusion Care, offering free one-to-one creativity sessions to patients and their caregivers as a complement to cancer treatment.
Schools, health organizations, and arts groups in Maine can learn more
about bringing Art HOPE programs to your community.
