From 2012 to 2023, Youth Art For Healing was the only program in North America that facilitated the creation of student artwork for permanent installation in hospitals and healthcare sites.

But hundreds of hospitals and healthcare systems across the country and the world have introduced paintings, sculptures, and other visual arts, music, storytelling, and art therapy programs to benefit their patients. Approximately half of the United States’ hospitals now include some form of arts programming. Beyond YAFH, many other nonprofit organizations help to bring artwork and the arts into hospitals and healthcare environments.

Behind all of these amazing efforts to integrate the arts and medicine is the belief in the power of art to transform the healing process for patients, as well as ease the stress and anxieties of patients’ loved ones and healthcare staff.

These stories from individuals with different health challenges and various hospitals across the country illustrate the truly transformative healing power of art.

The Healing Power of Art

How does art help to heal the soul? Creating artwork can help us focus on our positive emotions, regain a feeling of personal control, and provide a sense of meaning to the circumstances in our lives. Check out this video from “The Science of Happiness” about a fun, creative experiment that illustrates people exploring how art can help magnify their positive emotions.

Art Can Help People with Life-Threatening illness

Research shows that viewing and creating art has tremendous power to help people heal from injury and physical illness. But how does it work? Learn more in this video, "Art Therapy Program Helps People with Life-Threatening Illnesses Heal."

(Sm)art: visual intelligence

Author, lawyer, and art historian Amy E. Herman appeared on "CBS Mornings" to discuss visual intelligence and her book, "smART: Use Your Eyes to Boost Your Brain." She says, “No matter how skilled you might be at looking, you still have so much to learn about seeing.” Check out this clip to learn more about how looking at art can improve your critical thinking skills.

Creating Art Can Help Lift Our Spirits

Given by Spanish artist Domingo Zapata at TEDxSyracuseUniversity, this TEDx Talk is about how the creation of art has lifted his spirits during difficult times in his life. Zapata works in several different mediums, including painting, sculpture, and mosaic. He sold his first major painting to George Soros in 2005 and in 2017, he launched a fashion collection at New York Fashion Week. In this video, watch as Zapata creates a dynamic work of art on stage while giving his talk.

Art & awe as Healing

This excellent TED Talk about “Art and awe as healing” was given by artist Jennifer Allison, who suffers from a neurological condition called Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). This disorder causes her brain to react to stimuli in illogical and sometimes painful ways. Through her life story, Ms. Allison shares her attempts to cope with SPD and how rediscovering art saved her life. She says art has transformed her world "from pain and chaos to mesmerizing awe and wonder."

How Art Therapy is Used to Treat Trauma

Clinical Psychologist Cindi Cassady describes how she uses art therapy to help children, teens, and adults at a hospital in Rwanda to express their emotions and heal from trauma. Dr. Cassady also explains that art is a powerful, healing way that she and other therapists can express the pain that they witness when working with clients without breaking confidentiality.

Art Can Help People with Mental Illness

“Creativity is something that can help everybody and mental health is something that impacts everybody,” points out Jeff Sparr, Co-Founder of the nonprofit PeaceLove. He asks, “[What if] the answer to mental health issues in this world is prescribing more creativity?” Check out this video to hear Jeff’s personal mental health journey and learn how PeaceLove is impacting people through expressive arts workshops.

WHY ART MATTERS IN
HEALTHcare & SOCIAL CARE

Staff members from hospitals around Great Britian share the calming, encouraging impact of artwork that they observed on patients and other staff. Janet, a Matron of a Cancer Services Ward, says, “There’s high anxiety when patients are [in the] hospital and if they can divert a little bit into some art, certainly I see and feel that they actually get a relaxation feeling from it.” This video is produced by the nonprofit Paintings in Hospitals.

The University of Florida’s Arts in Medicine PrograM

The University of Florida’s Arts in Medicine Program is one of the leading institutions studying how art can assist in recovery. “Art and music have a way of taking us outside of ourselves,” explains Artist-in-Residence Sarah Hines, who works with both patients and families. Painting, sculpting, crafts, live music, and dance all play an important role in the care that patients receive as the program explores models of whole-person healthcare.

RxART Places art in hospitals around the United States

The nonprofit RxART works with contemporary artists to transform children’s hospitals across the U.S. into engaging and uplifting healing environments. Dr. Richard Heller, from Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital in Chicago, observes, “When you walk into a sterile room, it creates a feeling of fear, of coldness. That’s certainly not conducive to healing.” This video shows how artists truly transform things like CAT Scan machines with playful images to help ease children’s fear.

HOW THE CLEVELAND CLINIC USES ART THERAPY

Doctors and staff at the Cleveland Clinic understand that art therapy can meet a lot of patients’ needs, including emotionally, cognitively, and socially. Staff can see that for their patients, art therapy “increases their feelings of self-worth because they are learning a new skill and realizing what they are still capable of doing, despite their illness.” The clinic provides drawing, painting, and even beading materials for patients.

HEALING ART PROGRAM AT LAHEY HOSPITAL & MEDICAL CENTER

In Massachusetts, Lahey Hospital invited Great American Art to bring artwork into their facilities to support patients’ healing. GAA CEO Anne Strickland explains, “Evidence-based design for art is actual studies that have been done and papers that have been produced from [these studies] that show the power of art in helping to reduce fear, pain, anxiety, stress, for patients especially, but also for visitors and staff.”

How art and culture helps patients at Derby Hospital

Supported by the Arts Council England’s Grants for the Arts Programme, Derby Hospital has brought visual artwork, music, and dance into the wards, waiting rooms, and corridors to make a difference to the lives of patients and staff. “People can come into this environment and be very stressed and very anxious about treatments… [The artwork] is a very important way of reconnecting people back to themselves as the individual.”

Making Florida Hospitals More Hospitable

In Southwest Florida, the Lee Memorial Health System works with artists, musicians, storytellers, puppeteers, and even clowns to bring art into the healthcare environment. “Art is a healing force – it’s been proven,” explains Arts in Healthcare Coordinator Doug MacGregor. “It’s clinically proven that art and music calm a patient and distract them from their pain. Art is a very important part of everyday life, in particular in a healthcare system.”

ART & MEDICINE INTERSECT IN New York City HOSPITALS

The artwork owned by New York City’s Health and Hospitals, the nation’s largest municipal public hospital system, is not only designed to encourage patients and caregivers. The hospital system’s Arts in Medicine Program is also centered on the idea that public art is about civic engagement. The murals and artwork in their collection of over 3,000 artworks are designed to bring together patients, health workers, and the larger community.

HEALING PATIENTS THROUGH ART THERAPY IN MILWAUKEE

At Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center in Milwaukee, staff can see the impact of art therapy on their patients: “You can see their whole body relax […] like this weight is suddenly off their shoulders.” In this video, art therapists discuss the different types of art that benefit different patients, from drawing and painting to sculpting with clay. A mental health patient also describes the role that art has played in her recovery journey.