Exhibition, panel at Danforth Museum to highlight healing through art

By Jaclyn Reiss, Town Correspondent

The Foundation for Art and Healing, a Brookline-based non-profit founded in 2003, will host a free panel discussion at the Danforth Museum in Framingham this Sunday in conjunction with a current exhibition that explores how painting, drawing and photography promotes physical healthiness and emotional wellbeing, according to event organizers.

The Art and Healing exhibit features work from artists who used art as a way to get through their illness, or to help others do the same.

One artist featured, Elsa Dorfman, shows humorous, upbeat portraits of three women who had lost their hair due to chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer.

In a different emotional vein, artist Helen Meyrowitz enlisted pencil and paper to produce drawings to help her pull through providing care to her husband, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s.

The third exhibitor, photographer Willard Traub, captures images alluding to his emotional state as he suffers a serious, though unnamed, illness.

The exhibits opened on Sept. 11 and will continue to be shown to the public until Nov. 6.

The discussion panel, entitled Creative Expression, Health and Wellbeing, will feature experts from local colleges, hospitals and healthcare organizations, including the foundation's president, Jeremy Nobel.

Nobel said a growing body of research demonstrates that participating in an art form can contribute to greater health and wellness for a sick individual, and that the Foundation seeks to raise awareness about the topic.

"Enabling artists to explore the intersections of creativity and healing and share their vision with the community has proven to be an intimate way to generate awareness," he wrote in an advance statement. "Our Presenting Artists Program has provided accomplished and recognized artists financial support to share their perspectives through the compelling lens of personal experience, and we're pleased to extend it with this partnership with the Danforth Museum.”

The event will occur Sunday, Oct. 16 at 3 p.m in the Danforth Museum.

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To contact Jaclyn Reiss, email her at jaclyn.reiss@gmail.com