VIVIAN PAINTS with a brush weaved between the knuckles of her right hand. She's a quadriplegic.
Evan is also a quadriplegic: He fell while constructing a treehouse. He grips his paintbrush between clenched teeth.Clayton likewise holds his brush with his teeth. He's coming out of a coma after being thrown 50 feet in a car accident.
Lynn has been on a respirator for 11 years. He recently earned a Boy Scout merit badge in art.
Debbie was a professional singer. She developed cancer, underwent a bone marrow transplant and, while recuperating flat on her back, learned to paint.
Trent has Lou Gehrig's disease. He's learning to paint by holding the brush with his teeth and wants to write and illustrate a book about a dog for his daughter's eighth birthday.
What motivates these individuals to pick up a paintbrush and splash watercolor across paper? Her name is Nancy D. Collier, director of New Outlook Associates, an organization that provides rehabilitation through the creative and cultural arts. Collier and her associates help the injured, sick and disabled - through hospital and home visits - to become part of life again. Her innovative method is referred to as creative arts therapy.
"People overwhelmed with their illness, accident or disability are also overwhelmed with a fear of attempting something they've never done before - especially in the creative arts," says Collier. "By motivating patients to try the techniques I've developed during the past 11 years, they obtain a gratifying sense of success, of achievement, and their self-esteem and confidence levels are elevated. When they see their completed watercolor matted and hung on the wall, they are able to have an ongoing memory of the joy and achievement they felt while painting it."
After teaching school for many years, Collier completed graduate courses in working with the visually impaired and the learning disabled. But it wasn't until her mother was diagnosed with cancer that she put her "creative arts" ideas to work.
"Whenever she would be full of pain," Collier says, "or just giving up, you know, in the depths of despair, my daughter and I would get her involved in doing music or creative writing or painting. It was amazing how she was able to get involved and focus on something positive. It would help her forget about her pain and give her a reason to get up the next day."
Collier advocates "multi-sensory" therapy: involvement in not only painting but also music and creative writing - all during one session. She believes, as did the late Norman Cousins, that the right side of the brain - the side that controls creativity and intuitive reasoning - helps in the healing processes of the body. Cousins' research at the UCLA Medical Center showed that a biochemical reaction takes place in the body as a result of laughing or being involved in a creative project.
Getting patients to use the right side of their brains through the creative arts is Collier's goal. But it requires imperturbability and skill, as most patients are afraid to try at first.
"Many times people are reluctant to paint because they have this fear that they cannot do it. They'll say, `Oh, my mother told me when I was little that my brother got all the artistic talent in the family,' so they wouldn't paint or sing or write."
Collier begins by finding something that is very low energy and easy for the patients to do. She never wants them to feel failure. "When they've had a terrible accident and lost a leg or become blind or get cancer or whatever, by helping them achieve something makes it possible for them to think with a positive attitude."
Don was bedridden for many years with multiple sclerosis. His wife had died two years earlier of breast cancer. He was depressed and very reluctant to get involved with New Outlook program. A successful attorney for many years, Don felt he'd reached the point in life where he could no longer do anything productive. Collier kept visiting him. After four or five weeks his interest was finally piqued and he started painting. It changed his entire outlook on life.
When friends came to visit they would notice his completed watercolors hanging on the closet door. They no longer said, "Oh, we're so sorry your wife died" or "We're so sorry you're bedridden now." Instead, they talked about his paintings.
Eventually, Don's M.S. progressed to the point where he needed to be hospitalized. When informed that he would soon die, Don asked the doctors if he could go home. He wanted to paint one last picture: an angel for his daughter.
Don's muscle spasms were nearly uncontrollable by this time. In an effort to minimize his shaking, Collier used music: singing relaxed him, allowing Don to hold the brush with a steadier hand. After helping him grip the paintbrush, loaded with watercolor, Collier knelt down next to Don, held the watercolor pad up against his brush and moved it around. When they finished "it was a beautiful angel," Collier says.
The painting of the angel, along with many others by Don, were displayed by his children at their father's funeral.
Fortunately, many of Collier's patients are not terminally ill but victims of automobile collisions, depression, burns and other forms of accidents. Many of these, after Collier's help, are back at work earlier than doctors anticipated.
Diagnosed with leukemia in 1994, Chris underwent a bone marrow transplant. (In layman's terms, a transplant requires radiating the patient's entire body, killing not only the cancerous blood cells but also the healthy blood cells. At this point another person's blood is introduced into the patient, which it is hoped will attach itself to the patient's bone marrow to produce a whole new blood type.) Chris' wife, Glenna, says that Collier is "building his very fragile spirit and self-confidence while the doctors are taking care of his physical needs. I am convinced that the two cannot be separated when recovering from such a devastating illness. Unless his emotional needs are considered and his spirit receives healing, he would lack the `will' to continue the long, physical battle against cancer."
A visit by Collier goes something like this:
Bedridden by crippling arthritis and asthma, Pauline grows excited upon hearing Collier enter the house.
Collier talks to her while setting up the paintbrushes, watercolors and pads of paper. The two of them joke; the mood is relaxed. Pauline playfully chides Collier for not hanging her last painting correctly on the wall.
When asked what she wants to paint today, Pauline tells Collier to decide for her. Collier won't do this, telling Pauline it is more meaningful if she chooses for herself. Acquiescing with a sigh, Pauline chooses to copy a photograph of a vase of orange flowers, taken from a calendar.
Collier hands Pauline a watercolor tablet and the two discuss color choices.
After loading a brush with color and handing it to Pauline, Collier wets an area of the paper - the size of a flower - and has Pauline paint this area. The watercolor runs and Pauline turns the paper, shaping the running color.
Collier gives directions, suggestions on weight, balance and control of the color. She tells Pauline about the attributes of color.
Pauline finishes a flower petal and is ecstatic. They begin another.
"Clang, clang, clang went the trolley," Collier sings as Pauline paints. "Ding, ding, ding went the bell."
The singing relaxes Pauline and her painting becomes more liberated, her brush strokes lighter. They begin a discussion of flowers and their beauty.
Pauline talks incessantly. "Oh my heart," she says upon scrutinizing a completed flower.
Pauline questions the color Collier mixes. Collier agrees and changes it.
When Pauline makes a mistake it frustrates her. When Collier shows her how easy it is to repair the mistake the two laugh.
"My wild Irish rose. The sweetest flower that grows."
And so it goes for the remainder of the visit.
As of yet, insurance companies don't cover the treatments performed by Collier. It took a long time before they would cover music therapy, art therapy and recreational therapy. "We've only been a company for 11 years," she says. Collier wants to set up a training and certification program, but it is difficult because there's no licensing for creative arts therapy in Utah. She's currently working on that.
Some have suggested that she turn her program into videos that can be sold on TV. ("If you have cancer, insert tape No. 5. If recovering from an automobile accident, insert tape No. 2.") To Collier, this destroys the underlying purpose of New Outlook: personal contact with each patient.
When Pauline called Collier "my little angel" - she feels Collier truly saved her from the boredom and confinement of her debilitating illnesses - the director of New Outlook and Associates quips, "Come on, finish the petal."