Healing Arts Program at the Henry Ford Cancer Institute
Through the Healing Arts program, we provide opportunities for cancer patients, caregivers and the broader community to engage with the arts.
Art and Music Therapy
The arts have powerful healing properties because art connects your mind and your body. Unlike exercise, which works your body, or meditation, which clears your mind, creating art uses both, which research suggests has major health benefits.
When a patient works with an art or music therapist, they can expect to receive the same benefits as traditional talk therapy. In cancer care, we focus on several goals to help relieve the emotional concerns of a cancer diagnosis, including:
Relaxation
New coping skills for diagnosis-related anxiety, depression, and suffering
Outlet for self-expression, creative thinking and problem solving
Greater sense of control
Positive distraction from treatment
Feeling more hopeful
Music Therapy
The David DiChiera Music Therapy Program brings music therapy to cancer patients, their families and caregivers.
What does your happiness look like? Our first community art project during the month of November is a collaborative video called: Sometimes a Moment.
The purpose of this project is to identify and honor moments where we pause and find a bit of happiness in an otherwise stressful world. This may include a moment at home, work or any environment that brings a moment of joy, peace or anticipation. Possibilities can be large or small, such as dining with family, drawing a bath, noticing the changing trees, or seeing a child smile.
Guest artist Susan Goethel Campbell brings her expertise creating video art to compile the moments submitted by Henry Ford Cancer Institute patients, caregivers and team members into a narrative and video compilation. The final collaborative work will reflect on simple joys and create lasting permanence of fleeting moments.
For more information about how to participate in this project, visit this website.
Patient Art Show
Each fall, we showcase the artwork our patients and staff have created in the during the year. This traveling show spends a week in multiple locations across the system, so the artwork can be enjoyed by all. See some highlights from our Fall 2019 show below. Stay tuned for details about our 2020 Patient Art Show!
Art by Adelle, West Bloomfield
Portrait by Jim K.
Art by Etta Z, Macomb
Art by Judy C., Macomb
Art by Judy, Macomb
Art by Macomb Art Therapy Group
Art by Marcia, Detroit
Art by Maureen V., West Bloomfield
Art by Monica, Detroit
Art by Carey D., Macomb
Volunteer in the Healing Arts
Become an Arts Engagement Volunteer
Provide patients and their loved ones with an enjoyable, engaging art experience that focuses on the process of making at, not the product, through listening, empathy and relationship building. Apply online.
Share your passion for music as a Visiting Musician
Provide music for our guests, staff and patients. Music should be upbeat and pleasant. Apply online.
Opportunities for Artists
If you are an artist interested in sharing your time and/or talents with Henry Ford Cancer Institute patients, families and staff, contact our healing arts curator.
Help a cancer patient heal through the arts. Donate today!
It is through the support and contributions of donors like you that we can provide art and music therapy programs and activities at no-cost to our cancer patients and their families. To sponsor a program or care it forward with a gift, please contact the development office at (313) 876-1031 or email developmenthf@hfhs.org. All contributions are tax-deductible.
About Lindsay Anderson
With a passion for the arts and a keen eye as an interior designer, Lindsay Anderson knows how important the right space can be. It was this passion that inspired her to establish the Lindsay Anderson Healing Arts Curator Fund at Henry Ford Health System. This generous gift supports a curator for the Healing Arts program at the Brigitte Harris Cancer Pavilion. The Healing Arts Program creates a calming environment for patients, visitors and staff by integrating the creative arts and aesthetic experiences into the healing process.
David DiChiera, left and Joanne Danto, right. Also featured in our 2018 annual report.
About David DiChiera
Music is more than just entertainment—it can promote healing, too. David DiChiera, founder and longtime director of the Michigan Opera Theatre knew this. In honor of David, who passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2018, Joanne Danto, along with her family through the Marvin & Betty Danto Foundation, established the David DiChiera Music Therapy Program at the Henry Ford Cancer Institute. Their goal is to ensure that cancer patients have access to healing therapies that better position them mentally and physically for their fight ahead.
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What does your happiness look like? Our first community art project during the month of November is a collaborative video called: Sometimes a Moment.
