Students donate ‘calming murals’ to cancer patients

Art students create murals for Northwell patients

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A group of talented teens from Baldwin High School brought their art and care to Northwell Health’s Center for Advanced Medicine in New Hyde Park on June 6, and were thanked for their efforts at a special ceremony. Students from the school’s art classes donated paintings and photographs to the hospital’s Center for Advanced Medicine, and the ceremony doubled as an exhibition of sorts for the artwork before it was hung in patients’ rooms.

“This is a gift from the talented high school students,” Craig Devoe, acting chief of the hospital’s hemotology and oncology department, told the gathering of students, parents, teachers, school officials and hospital staff. “It came about through, really, their compassion and their efforts to improve the experience of patients here at the Center for Advanced Medicine.”

Devoe added, “Patients living with cancer are under a tremendous amount of stress — physically, emotionally, spiritually — and we take this emotional distress, this emotional impact of cancer, very seriously here.”

The Calming Murals project was the first of its kind for the hospital. “We look at art as a form of healing for these patients,” Devoe said. “I think the artwork is a form of inspiration for patients. I think the artwork demonstrates the compassion of the young adults here, and of the compassion we’re trying to emphasize in the patients’ treatments.”

Michelle Liemer-Kelly and Pat Grant, the art teachers who organized the project, said they were amazed by their students’ enthusiasm and passion. “They thought about what types of images would create a calm, peaceful feeling,” Grant said, “and they came up with different ideas, like pastel colors and simple compositions. We took a field trip to Old Westbury Gardens, and the students walked through the gardens and found images they thought would work well for this.”

Baldwin High senior Katarina Hecht, one of the artists, said that her photograph, which she titled “Twinkling Garden,” made her feel safe and at ease, and she wanted to help project that feeling onto those facing medical challenges.

Another senior, Jennifer Fordsman, said she drew inspiration for her art from her own experience. “When I was 11 years old, my aunt passed away from lung cancer,” she recalled, “and I remember going to the hospital for a couple of minutes and staring at these blank walls around her room, and I remember feeling really alone.

“So when my teacher told me about this project, I wanted to do it, absolutely, no doubt,” Fordsman added. “And I knew I wanted to do sunflowers, because those were my aunt’s favorite flowers.” In fact, she titled her work “For Aunt Barbara.”

“I’m proud of the painting, and the way it turned out,” Fordsman said. “But also, I’m proud in general for those giving me this opportunity.”

“I never know what to expect with my students,” Liemer-Kelly told the small crowd. “I always expect greatness, and they always come through, but his project feels like they went above and beyond my expectations. Thank you so much — you guys really rocked this project.”