The healing power of art

The Healing power of Art

The bad deaths still prowl my memory. The bedridden incoherent 89-year-old man subjected to another heart surgery because his family and his doctor couldn’t let go, spent his final days in extreme pain only to die alone. John was shunned by his family and his nurses because he had AIDS. In his last hour I tore off my gloves and mask. I wanted to hold his hand, skin to skin because no one should be walked to death’s door through a latex glove. I was only 20 but I remember thinking something about the way we institutionalized death was all wrong.
Death has become impersonalized in the move from home to hospital. The personal bonds of family and other societal connections that once supported this most basic human process have eroded. We fear facing death alone and have pushed it into back rooms and behind closed doors. In doing so, we lost important lessons. We misplaced our compassion and humanity, forgot our openness because we refuse to feel our broken hearts and the strength of all its pieces contained. Art is the way in which we retrieve all this because it presents a non-threatening way for people and communities to feel first and process later. A hospice patient may be resistant to reviewing her life with a chaplain or social worker but will easily open up for the purpose of a written biography that will be a legacy passed onto family. A community may squirm uncomfortably at the mention of death and dying, but embrace it when it is presented on a page, canvas, or framed in an artistic life celebration.
I have witnessed the results first hand through the Tributaries Art opening. During an interview for his bio, Jim Wells expressed regret he had never had an art show. Our conversation quickly turned into a ten-minute brainstorming session. Our mutual creativity danced and a joint art show for Jim and his 15-year-old daughter Ashley was the result. Neither of us completely understood what a profound affect this new memory would have on the St. Louis community until we watched literally hundreds of people fill the room and at every turn new stories birthed. A couple from North Carolina heard about the show while passing through. They stood in line for an hour so they could tell Jim how his courage and love for his daughter inspired them to tell their children how much they loved them. A doctor who attended the show said it completely shifted her ideas about healing. Jim’s family and friends literally laughed and cried their way through a difficult goodbye, all while truly celebrating a life. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch nominated the Tributaries exhibit as one of the most meaningful stories of 2003. All of this was generated by the simple act of sitting down with someone and giving them the time and space to tell their story. Amazing, until I think about a moment I had right before the show.
Ron Buechele, the owner of Mad Art Gallery donated time and space. We were pounding nails, rearranging frames and canvas to carry the eye from one painting to the other. In unexpected synchronicity we both found ourselves in the center of the room silently absorbing what was before us. This was more than just art. This was an intersection of lives-- the artistic outline of a father and a daughter and the colors of continuity. We stood side by side complex tears of sorrow and joy flowing down our faces. This was life at its barest essence and we were links in its chain. The moment soared of both humility and power. We felt connected to something outside of ourselves-- something that didn’t demand we surrender our individuality but still honored our collective humanness. Ron talked about his father’s death. I talked about my daughter’s 16 days of life, marveled at the impact she had on me and now so many others. A full circle of memories and people came together. We created community -- one feeling the impact and learning the power of all its endings crashing into its beginnings.