Art for the kids’ sakes at the UIHC
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Imagine waiting for a heart transplant. Now imagine being 12 years old and waiting for your second transplant in one year.
UI senior art student Ryan Ainsworth is trying to make something unfathomable to most people bearable for kids at the UI Children’s Hospital through his art-therapy program, which helps sick children pass time in the hospital through creating art.
He began the project as an independent study course called My Life Canvas Art Project in September 2008; the program has since grown to include more art forms and more children and student volunteers. He describes the goal of his project as an effort to build confidence and teach patients to creatively share their lives.
“It is a really tough time, and I think it means a lot to them that college students are coming and spending time with them,” the 23-year-old said. “I think that it means a lot to them that they are creating something; there are only so many things they can do in a hospital bed.”
Twelve-year-old Bryce Draisey, who has dilated cardiomyopathy (in which the heart becomes enlarged and weakened), has been in the UI Children’s Hospital since March 22. After his first heart transplant in July 2008, he is now waiting for a second. He is hoping doctors at the hospital can stabilize him, allowing him to go home while waiting for an undetermined amount of time for a new heart.
Because Draisey will receive a second transplant, doctors need to make sure the new heart will not react adversely, as did the first. This adds approximately 10 hours to the transplant time once the organ is received, making it essential for the donor to come from a close geographical area. This factor and Draisey’s less-receptive blood type increase the difficulty of finding an adequate heart transplant match.
Bryce’s mother, Michelle Draisey, said Ainsworth’s presence during their stay at the hospital has been comforting. The Des Moines resident said it’s hard to deal with a family split between two cities — Bryce’s father stays in Des Moines with his sister Brooklyn and can only visit Wednesday nights and weekends.
“I think it’s wonderful for kids who have to be here an extended amount of time,” Michelle Draisey said, noting it’s hard to be at the hospital all the time because of work. “[Hospital volunteers] kept him so busy that he even had fun and almost forgot that he was in the hospital. I mean you don’t ever forget, but it made it so much more tolerable, especially when we couldn’t be here.”
Ainsworth and Bryce sometimes play guitar together in addition to creating art, she said.
Artwork by patients Ainsworth and other UI art students have worked with will be displayed in the Pappajohn Pavilion lobby of the UI Hospitals and Clinics through May 1.
Emily Hazelwood, a certified child life specialist at the UI Children’s Hospital, helped Ainsworth establish his program at the hospital. If a project such as Ainsworth’s could be permanently established in the hospital, it would, she said, but budget concerns make that difficult.
The program will most likely be absorbed as part of Project Art, a UIHC program that maintains permanent and visiting collections of art displayed in the hospital as well as performing arts events, Hazelwood said.
David Dunlap, a UI associate professor of art who met Ainsworth two years ago, said his work with children in the hospital has been a “perfect fit.”
“He has been really trying to make a community,” Dunlap said as he helped Ainsworth set up for the show on April 26.
The exhibit will help raise awareness of the project and give patients the opportunity to share themselves with the hospital, Ainsworth said.
“We want the viewers to be able to connect with the patients,” he said. “The biggest goal of [the project] is to give the patients a voice and make it so the viewer can come and really get a feel for the patients and get to know them personally.”
Bryce’s art in the show will include paintings as well as a 6-foot sculpture that he dubbed “Sheriff Pickle and Deputy Bacon.” But the young Draisey said art isn’t what he wants to do in life. His favorite food is tacos, he said, and one day he would like to go to culinary school in Chicago.
Michelle Draisey said he wants to open a restaurant in Florida.
Ainsworth said one the project’s goals is to ultimately have his project transformed into a university course in which art students can gain class credit.
UI junior Alecia Eggers has worked with Ainsworth in the program for a couple of weeks. She found out about the opportunity through her adviser and said she saw art therapy as a good way for children to express themselves.
She would like to continue with the program if it lasts another year, she said.
“I think it helps [the kids] to have an outlet,” Eggers said. “It is a good way to get out there in the community, instead of just going to classes.”
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