Tania Leal, a patient, with John Feight, founder of the Foundation for Hospital Art, which created PaintFest America.
Patients and staff members were encouraged to channel their inner schoolchildren recently when volunteers from the nonprofit PaintFest America visited the Ruttenberg Treatment Center and the Mount Sinai Beth Israel Comprehensive Cancer Center West. About 100 participants at each site filled in large paint-by-numbers canvases of roses, butterflies, and tree frogs that will be assembled into colorful murals for the sites’ walls. They painted in waiting rooms, a conference room, and even in a treatment infusion site, says Alison Snow, PhD, LCSW, Social Work Supervisor, Cancer Supportive Services, Mount Sinai Beth Israel Comprehensive Cancer Center West. “It’s something that’s fun, something that’s therapeutic and takes you away from your situation,” she says. The event was the last stop in a nationwide campaign by PaintFest America, which had vowed to visit cancer patients in each state for 50 straight days.