Tricia Scott
Artist-in-Residence
June 2, 2016
The healing arts program is such a gift. To the patients but also to the artists.

I was able to visit with a patient several times during her stay at the hospital. Her first words to me were that she had been on suicide watch the night before, that she needed art, and that art would save her and thank goodness I was there. No pressure.

She’d heard that I journaled. Luckily I had my journal with me that day. I pulled it out and showed it to her. We looked through it together. She seemed especially drawn to the collage and the found poems (words clipped from old books and pieced together into poems).

She said she hadn’t written in months and she shared the tragic reason, the lossthat she felt kept her from writing. We put on some peaceful music and with the book pages, scissors, and glue sticks we each crafted a poem. Hers was lovely and heartfelt. She was so proud of it, of having worked with words again. There were tears. But also big smiles. It was wonderful and healing, the simple act of creating. I left her some supplies for the poems and also collage and promised to be back in a few days.

During her hospital stay, we made several collages and poems, we painted brave woman super hero masks, and we talked about art, our lives. And the whole time she was in pain. That part always amazes me with the patients. When the nurses came in and asked her pain level she would say a 9. I remember the first time that happened I was surprised. I wouldn’t have known, I told her.“Nothing will stop me from making art,” she said, and grinned at me. And just as she had the new gift of found poem and collage I also had a gift of meeting her and observing her strength. I won’t forget her.