Medium for Healing : Health: An exhibit opening next week will illustrate how art can be used to help in recovery from illness. The show will include works by psychiatric and cancer patients.
What you notice first about Todd Dennen’s paintings are the eyes: large, well-shaped, sometimes brooding, at times riveting.
He adds curvaceous lips, a nose, a chin. Color may drape the face like a watercolor veil--but the eyes still dominate.
“I like anatomy. I like eyes and mouths,” Dennen said. “I think the eyes are a window to a person’s soul.”
Dennen’s haunting images, which have adorned the walls of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, will be moved to the South Bay Contemporary Museum of Art in Torrance for an unusual exhibition titled “Healing Arts.” The exhibit will open Feb. 6 and close March 3.
The exhibit will illustrate how the visual arts can help in a patient’s recovery. A few of the artists, including Dennen, are clients in a Harbor-UCLA outpatient psychiatric program known as “A Better Life Endeavor,” or ABLE. Others have been cancer patients; some are developmentally disabled. The art will be assembled from throughout Southern California.
Organizers hope the exhibit will show how art serves as a healing tool. They have a second goal: to raise money at a related Feb. 9 benefit to help bolster the arts in the ABLE program and launch an art therapy program for cancer patients at Harbor-UCLA, the county hospital near Torrance.
In this era of deep county budget cuts, arts advocates say they must look to private donations to pay for art supplies and instruction at the South Bay area’s public hospital.
Brightly colored paintings already adorn the white walls of 2 South, a small building tucked behind the main Harbor-UCLA facility. This is home to ABLE, a new and innovative county outpatient program for the mentally ill. Launched in October, 1991, it serves 35 patients--or “members” as they are called in the program.
The arts play a prominent role at the facility, illustrated by the donated baby grand piano that sits in the middle of a main room. Dennen sat at the keyboard one afternoon this week, singing a lively ballad as he stroked the keys and briskly tapped his foot.
He paused to reach for paper and marking pen. Still perched on the piano bench, he created sweeping strokes of black ink--first the eyes, a mouth, a swath of hair, apple-round cheeks.
Dennen is an accomplished artist who will have a number of watercolor portraits in next month’s show. He talks about his work with enthusiasm and wry humor.
“I love watercolor because I love sun showers and dew drops,” he said. “Oil reminds me of when my car broke down.”
Dennen said he plans to take some college classes in drawing, clay and music. He now works part-time at a Long Beach cafe.
Another ABLE client in her late 20s started a watercolor of a woman’s face. As a photographer snapped shots of her work, she encircled the woman’s face with golden stars.
She felt “star struck,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified by name. She also will display watercolors at the show.
Another young woman quietly picked up a brush to paint a large heart, then a blue horizon. It was the first time she had painted since joining the program.
The ABLE program incorporates art because the clients want it, said Suzane Wilbur, program director.
“It developed after a large number of the members said, ‘We’re artists--we’d like to express ourselves,’ ” Wilbur said.
Art is not used as traditional therapy per se but as a vehicle for clients to set and achieve goals, she said. A client might decide to display or sell a painting and then move toward that goal.
The upcoming exhibit will be part of that process because clients will exhibit their paintings just as other artists do.
“There’s no reason why a mentally ill person can’t have that exact same experience,” said Wilbur.
Clients have been assisted by program intern Diana Windsor, who is finishing her master’s degree in counseling at Loyola Marymount University.
“It feels like we’re finding the healthy part of the person and expanding on that,” said Windsor, a sculptor and former art teacher.
Some of the proceeds from the “Healing Art” benefit will be used to buy art supplies, and Wilbur said she hopes to obtain a grant to continue the program’s art activities.
Meanwhile, Dr. Jerome Block plans to introduce art therapy for Harbor-UCLA cancer patients, using private donations. Block, who heads the division of medical oncology at Harbor-UCLA, is also president of the South Bay Contemporary Museum.
Through art, Block said, cancer patients who sometimes feel powerless during treatment can express themselves and strengthen their sense of control.
Seeing their art on display gives patients a sense of pride, Block said.
“It gives them value as a human being . . . ‘I can do this product that people value and love,’ ” he said.
‘Healing Arts’--2 Special Events Two upcoming South Bay events, an art exhibition and a benefit dinner, will honor the “Healing Arts . “
* The exhibit will include works by Southern California artists who have had cancer, psychiatric problems or developmental disabilities. It will open Feb. 6 from 7 to 9 p.m. and will continue through March 3 at the South Bay Contemporary Museum of Art, 5029 Pacific Coast Highway, Torrance. A special Feb. 27 event will feature improvisational theater by the 14th Street Players at 7:30 p.m. and will be followed by the video documentary “People Say I’m Crazy.”
* A Feb. 9 benefit will begin with a 6 p.m. reception and a silent auction of art work by more than 50 artists. It will be held at the Torrance Marriott, 3635 Fashion Way, Torrance. The auction is open to the public. Tickets to the 7:30 p.m. dinner at the Marriott are $75 each. Proceeds will support art programs at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, student grants at Loyola Marymount University and the South Bay Contemporary Museum. For more
information, call (310) 375-3775.
