MARLESSA (mars) ANN WESOLOWSKI
paintmars.com
Healing Arts Program St. Paul's Hospital | Healing through imagination and creativity
SPH Blueprint of Life Community Mural
New wall mural breathes life into St. Paul’s Hospital Cameco Community Renal Building
June 8, 2016 in St. Paul's Hospital,
The Region Reporter Saskatoon Health Region
The “Blueprint of Life” mural behind St. Paul’s Hospital Cameco Community Renal Building (across 20th Street from hospital) is now complete.
The huge 72 foot long wall mural was painted by students from the Core Neighbourhood Youth Co-op, Boys & Girls Clubs of Saskatoon and the Toronto Kiwanis Boys and Girls Clubs, who were in Saskatoon on an exchange program. Patients, families, Region employees and community members also took part in the two-day event.
“It is so much fun to take part in something that contributes to brightening the neighbourhood,” said one of the visiting Club members. “The colours and symbols are so vibrant.”
The mural celebrates the genetic blueprint of all living things, our DNA, and is a project of St. Paul’s Hospital Healing Arts Program. Marlessa Wesolowski, the Program’s artist-in-residence, explains why having volunteer youth program partners in projects like this is so important.
“Art is a wonderful means for engaging youth. Projects like the mural allow youth to channel their energy into creativity and contribute to community while building connections and confidence.”
St. Pauls’ Hospital & St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation Annual Review 2015-2016
St. Paul’s Hospital Healing Arts Program
http://www.stpaulshospital.org/quadrant/media/home/pdfs/2015-2016-annual-review.pdf
“This year St. Paul’s Hospital Healing Arts Program celebrated 10 years of providing healing through the arts to patients, families and the community. The program is funded wholly through donors, and without them this very important service would not be available to patients and their families.
Surgical Humanites, Department of Surgery University of Saskatchewan
Diocesan News
Healing through art a life-changing experience, St. Paul's Hospital Healing Arts Program
By Leanne Nyirfa 03/25/2015
Traditional healing and leading edge medicine practices understand health as embodying more than the physical state. From this holistic perspective, health is considerably more than the absence of symptoms or disease. It is an integrated state of mind, body and spirit.
Both through my own creative process as a visual artist, and through the fostering of creative endeavors of others for over a decade, I have witnessed and experienced the profound healing benefits and transformation afforded by the act of creating, particularly when doing within the context of a nurturing and supportive community.
As Artist- in-Residence at St. Paul’s Hospital since 2005, I am privileged to have played an integral part in establishing and developing the St. Paul’s Healing Arts Program. From its inception, this program has emphasized the unique identity and creative potential of each and every individual by providing engaging, innovative and uplifting experiences that support an integrated approach to care.
Fundamental to my approach is fostering an inspirational, inclusive, and authentic studio atmosphere where one’s imagination and creative potential are nurtured and expressed freely through artistic processes during times of health crisis and existential distress. The studio becomes a gathering place for creative discovery, cultivated through a community of aspiring artists grounded in love, creativity and compassion in which inter-cultural and inter-generational understandings are fortified. My work also contributes to the enhancement of individual and community health and well-being through arts-based programming for community youth and those with addictions.
Marlessa Wesolowski
http://www.stpaulshospital.org/about/healing.php