Art Therapy Fundraiser Showcases Artwork Created by UH Caregivers
If you walk through the Trudy Wisenberger Gallery in the Humphrey Building at UH Cleveland Medical Center, you may feel compelled to look at the colorful artwork currently hanging there. Upon closer inspection, you’ll see each piece is made using hundreds of colorful circle stickers that are used as part of the hospital’s COVID-19 health screening.
The exhibition features 16 different sticker art designs including the very first, called “Hope in the Garden of Quarantine." Each sticker on these pieces represents a day that a UH caregiver spent serving others, symbolizing the trials and tribulations of days shared in the hospital amidst the global pandemic.
Starting on March 1, an online fundraiser will provide an opportunity to own one of the full-size art pieces or 8x10 prints of the artwork. Raffle tickets are $25 each and will support creative art therapy through UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Family and Child Life Department. Prints of all of the art pieces will be available for purchase for $12 each, with a portion of the price supporting the art therapy program.
Healing through Creativity
In the spring of 2020, UH implemented COVID-19 screenings at its entrances. Upon completing the daily screening, staff and visitors received a small, circle-shaped sticker with a number indicating the day of the month. This system created an easy and visible way for the hospital staff to know who has gone through appropriate screening to enter the building.
The urge to create, even when under duress, is at the core of human nature. Michelle Chavez, an art therapist at UH Rainbow, began noticing the stickers on light posts and parking garage walls. She thought, what if all these stickers came together to create a bigger, brighter picture?
Created with Care
Using easily recognizable historic artworks, like Van Gogh's famous Starry Night, caregivers used the stickers to become artists. For the more intricate pieces, caregivers reported entering almost meditative state during “stickering" that was stress relieving and healing. Eight of the 16 pieces were completed by UH Rainbow's Creative Arts Therapies team and the eight others were completed by various departments throughout UH Cleveland Medical Center.
Michelle’s idea inspired caregivers at UH and around the country. The artwork has been featuring on national news outlets and two of the pieces – Starry Night and Dr. Fauci – will be featured in a “Learning from COVID-19 online exhibit" at Florida State University.
In addition to the completed pieces, patients, visitors and staff are invited to participate in a mini indoor version of the “Street Lamp Collaboration." Simply place a daily screening sticker on the large printed street lamp poster at the entrance of the gallery and watch the progress throughout this exhibition.