Arts in Medicine and the Cultural Intervention

When I was in highschool, I spent a month in a hospital, rehabilitating from a breakdown shortly after my father's illness and eventual death to cancer. There I was exposed to art therapists and guided imagery, meditation and relaxation techniques. These expereinces shaped they way I have looked at art and imagery. Over the past sixteen years my path has gradually taken me back to this space of illness and art. In my perspective, illness is not simply a physical distruption, but also a spiritual state which defines much of our modern and contemporary culture-everything from the lack of community support, meaning, and exercise, to the excess of stress, processed food and toxins. It reveals the collision and combustion of environmental, genetic, and psychological factors, that over time emerges in sickness.
Of course, I am not an expert in these matters, but a simple observer who recognizes the powerful role of art-making as an intervention and regeneration. In my view, such issues can be and should be addressed in art education... Long gone are the days where knowledge and pedagogy is compartmentalized- where biological, psychologcial, sociological, and cultural aspects of art are separated and taught within a singular boundary. I envision that up-in-coming art students will understand a holistic, mind-body-soul perspective of art, and recognize how art globally functions, and can be an agent of personal and social change.
So I am indebted to Dr. Micheal Samuels, Mary Rockford Lane, R.N, PH.d,, Dr. Jon Kabatt-Zinn, Sean McNiff,and others who have increased the validation of using art in healthcare, but who also have articulated the healing mechanism in simple ways that can be utilized cross-disciplinarily to the general public.