Natural light streams through oversized windows and into the sixth floor space where several tables are all covered with scraps of magazines and painting supplies.
Dr. Esther Dreifuss-Kattan approaches her students with trays of pastels, instructing them to close their eyes and draw ““ surprisingly enough ““ scribbles rather than fruit or the human form.
Once each pupil’s scribble is complete, she asks them what they see. With the urging of Dr. Dreifuss-Kattan, the nondescript scribble slowly evolves into sailboats, saddles and bicycles.
This is not a scene from a studio in the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Center or the animation room in Melnitz Hall, but an art therapy workshop for cancer patients at the Premiere Oncology Foundation and Art4aCure benefit site in Santa Monica.
“The idea is not to be good, but to be open and free,” said Dreifuss-Kattan who holds a doctorate in art therapy and psychoanalysis.
Rick Pantele, owner of the Palm Springs-based art studio Incredible Artist, recently teamed up with Premiere Oncology’s founder, Lee Rosen, to bring art and medicine together through a benefit called Art4aCure.
“Art is three letters, one little word, but such a big thing in our lives,” said Pantele, a three-time cancer survivor and a patient of Rosen, who founded the developmental therapeutics program at UCLA in 1996.
Michelle Ledell has been diagnosed with three unrelated cancers in the past four years and has become a regular at Premiere Oncology’s art therapy workshops. She feels that going to these workshops enable her to take an active role in her recovery.
“I feel that art is helping me to be more of a participant in this healing process,” Ledell said. “I’m not totally relying on chemotherapy and doctors to take care of me; I’m relying on the energies that I have.”
Since the concept took hold in April, Pantele has brought in over 300 works of art to fill the 28,000 square foot cancer-center-turned-art-exhibit. Each piece on the wall is for sale with 25 percent of the profits going directly towards Phase One cancer research through Premiere Oncology, a nonprofit organization. Other art pieces, as well as donated merchandise, are available at an online auction with 75 percent of the sales going towards the benefit.
Although the ultimate hope is to sell the art for the benefit of the foundation, as long as the pieces remain on Premiere Oncology’s walls, patients will find themselves immersed in art rather than reminded of the treatments and checkups just around the corner.
“The center looks like no other cancer center in the country,” said Robbie Gluckson, executive director of Premiere Oncology. “It’s totally taken people’s minds off their sickness.”
The facility is now home to an eclectic array of artwork.
Featured works include a 3-D painting of golfers floating through space, an homage to Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe painting using only the artist’s lips, and a seven-canvas, 48-foot-long painting by 84-year-old Vernon Finney depicting the seven days of creation in brilliant color.
Charles Perkins creates copper assemblages of bird’s nests filled with polished heart-shaped stones with his wife Linda.
“Anything that can bring a smile to someone’s face, anything that brings a positive feeling to someone during that person’s treatment can only be good,” he said.
Premiere Oncology and Art4aCure’s opening gala was held July 18, but an encore event well be held the weekend of Sept. 12 in hopes of raising both awareness and donations for the foundation.
“We hope the gala will be the beginning of a long relationship between our community and people with, or affected by, cancer,” Rosen said.
“It would have been easy to put on yet another dinner, movie or sporting event, but, while fund-raising is certainly important, sometimes it is the interaction between people that leads to the most success and the most creative ways to fight cancer.”
With Art4aCure’s encore event in September, Pantele hopes to fill the Premiere Oncology with upwards of 1,000 art lovers and cancer patients alike.
“You’ll see a gathering of people with one common denominator,” Pantele said. “They love art, and they have some reason to be involved with the cancer research.”
While the encore event will come and go, the art pieces will continue affecting those who stop and look. “These walls will always have art on them. As we see it now, there is no reason for them not to,” Pantele said.
“Art4aCure has been a great experience to get started, but it’s just the beginning.”