Join Us This Week for Art Heals at Magee Rehabilitation October 9th

This Friday, the Magee Rehabilitation Hospital will hold its annual fundraiser for its Art Heals Program. Unlike physical and vocational therapies, many insurance companies do not cover art therapy.

Art Heals was created over 20 years ago to help those who suffered life-changing injuries or illnesses learn new ways of creating, both art and new ways of living. The Magee Foundation, with the help of the Honickman Family Foundation, the Magee staff, and supporters, has found a way to tap into the creative process, a process that is rarely limited by physical injury.

Many of Magee’s patients face an unsure future. Before their injuries, they were living full, active lives. Many face a future of severe physical limitations. They have lost the use of their legs and arms, and some are unable to breathe without the help of a mechanical ventilator.

For most, it will be impossible to live as they did before. Their new lives include wheelchairs, physical aids, mechanical devices, and limits on where they can go and who they can visit.

For many, the sense of loss is profound, and the challenges they face can seem insurmountable. They must develop new skills, new ways of living, and new ways to interact with friends, loved ones, family, and even the outside world.

Julie Nolan, an art therapist at Moss Magee Rehabilitation Hospitals, said recovery happens in stages. 

“At the early stages, after the injury, there is a lot of focus on what has been lost,” she said. “Our hope is, through Art Therapy, we can support processing what has happened and help people discover new parts of their identity, giving them a new sense of what life can look like.”

Many Hall Monitor readers know about Lisa and my son Daren’s injury and death after being the victim of gun violence. Before his injury, Daren was beginning a career as a visual artist. Afterward, he no longer had the use of his body. He could not move below his neck. 

As most can imagine, the months after the injury were difficult. Like so many others who have suffered catastrophic injuries, Daren could not envision a fulfilling and joyful life.

Daren worked with a Magee art therapist. Learning to create art without his arms or hands reconnected him with his creativity. He learned to paint with his mouth, use his breath to blow paint out of straws, and use a head mouse to create art on a computer.

It wasn’t the same, of course, but his paintings were his acts of creation and expression. As he said, when he created, he was not bound to his physical body: “Creativity does not require hands and arms, just thoughts and a way to express them.”

At the time, perhaps, we did not understand that by accessing his creative powers, Daren could not only paint and create works on a computer; he could also envision new ways of living. While what he once wanted was no longer possible, his ability to create allowed him to create new desires, new jobs, and new activities that he could pursue in his new life.

It wasn’t until after Daren’s passing that we understood many more learned new ways of living as they tapped into their creative process.

The work of Magee’s Art Therapy attempts to transform losses, even the loss of the former life, old dreams, old ways, into new ways of living.

The host of the Art Heals fundraiser, Dr. James George, who found a way through art therapy to overcome a profound injury, said after he learned to tap into his creative powers: “I was hooked on the miracle of Art as a healing activity.”

With all it does, and all the hope it offers, it is difficult to understand why insurance companies don’t cover Art Therapy and why elected officials don’t hold hearings asking about its exclusion.

For many of the supporters of Magee’s Art Therapy program, it is what they can do to alleviate some of the suffering. None of us can go backward in time and change what happened; all we can do is create new opportunities for new lives.