Arts for Optimal Health program celebrates a decade of empowerment through creativity
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By Beth Bilderback
Why do we appreciate art, and what inspires us to create it? The answer is rooted in neuroscience, which has proven that a biological connection exists between art and the human brain.
From painting to poetry, music to movement, arts therapies empower individuals to express themselves in ways that can be difficult to talk about it. Creativity can heal.
Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences Counseling & Art Therapy at Old Dominion University was the first program created in the EVMS School of Health Professions in 1973. As Professor and Program Director Mary Roberts, Ph.D., LPC-ACS, ATR-BC, puts it, “Our profession is not new, it’s just small.”
In 2014 Dr. Roberts created the Arts for Optimal Health (AOH) program as a way to bring art therapy and arts engagement services to the community for wellness, healing and growth. It is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.
“When I first came on in 2013, I noticed that the School of Health Professions faculty primarily focused on education,” said Dr. Roberts. “There weren’t many opportunities for students to gain experience in the field. We needed to expand arts therapies beyond education to the community so as to embrace optimal health. I investigated arts therapies in academic health centers and worked with the Development department to determine the necessary strategic goals that would expand our reach in the community.”
This led to the creation of the AOH, which is made up of four branches: education, research, clinical and community service. Projects are funded through grants and philanthropic gifts. The first Arts for Optimal Health program was the Grant Store Project, funded by the Hanse family. The funds went toward purchasing art materials for student internships. This stockpile was named the Grant Store (still located in a classroom closet) and is constantly replenished with leftover supplies and materials purchased with each project grant’s material allowance.
The Arts for Optimal Health program engages with many different populations, including seniors, veterans, those with mild cognitive impairment and caregivers. Projects have explored everything from social justice to racism, privilege and oppression to healthcare disparities. Internships have taken place in local community centers, the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), the Peninsula Fine Arts Center, the Norfolk State University art department and local Portsmouth churches.
Some Arts for Optimal Health projects have become permanent. The Expressive Art Collaboration with the Norfolk Street Choir Project, now in its fourth year, is a year-round grant contract for faculty to come in and run a weekly expressive arts group with students as participant-observers.
In the summer of 2024, Arts for Optimal Health began a new initiative, The Bobby Levin Expressions of Cancer Project: Art Therapy for Survivors, Patients and Care Partners. MOCA hosted two workshops of four sessions each, designed to help participants process their lived experiences related to cancer.
Bobby Levin, who died Sept. 17, 2024, was a patient at Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences EVMS Medical Group at Old Dominion University and identified as both as an artist and an individual with cancer. He was a friend of Chair of the Board of Directors Bruce Waldholtz, MD, himself a cancer survivor, who’d seen an AOH pop-up art exhibit on campus and wanted to create one centering around the cancer experience.
One workshop, the Survivor and Patient group, had participants explore their experiences coping with diagnosis, changes in roles and daily life, managing depression and anxiety, understanding fears of the disease process, fear of recurrence and other topics.
The Care Partners group explored feelings held in, role shift, compassion fatigue, care partner burden and resiliency.
Both workshops centered on processing feelings through artmaking and open discussion.
The art created during these workshops was featured in a pop-up art show on Old Dominion University’s Eastern Virginia Medical School campus that ran from late September through October 2024. Approximately 20 pieces offered reflections from patients, survivors and care partners about their lived experiences with cancer.
Although Levin passed away before he could see the completed exhibit, participating in the workshops showed him firsthand how a facilitator guiding the creative process can lead to emotional growth and healing.
“Bobby hadn’t previously had any art therapy, though on his own he’d experienced the therapeutic benefits of painting,” said Dr. Roberts. “Once he participated in the groups, he saw the difference and wrote us to say thank you for what we’re doing, and that now he really understood how valuable art therapy is.”
Learn more about the Arts for Optimal Health program and Counseling & Art Therapy at ODU.
Pictured at top: A pop-up art show featuring works by participants in the Bobby Levin Expressions of Cancer Project ran from late September through October 2024 on Old Dominion University’s Eastern Virginia Medical School campus.