It is difficult to honestly talk about the most painful places of life - the times when cannot avoid facing our mortality or need to come to grips with our value as human beings. But in this conversation, Erin McGee Ferrell spoke about those issues with such ease that I was grateful. The ease with which she deals with those subjects is a testament to the healthy way in which she's faced those issues herself.

Erin lit up my day with what she shared and the way she shared it, and I know that you’ll be inspired and encouraged as well. A few jewels you can look forward to from this episode:

• Erin’s current studio: in a church rectory, overlooking a cemetery
• How Erin got involved in healthcare-related work - and the difference she’s making
• The relationship of art to the deeper things we all experience in life
• A South American experience where Erin discovered a culture losing its artistic history
• How Erin’s art serves as her personal diary

Creativity poured out when Erin faced her mortality

Amazingly, as Erin and I recorded this conversation she had just passed the 1-year anniversary to the discovery that she had breast cancer. Throughout that year she had experienced all the emotions and procedures you might imagine and many that you can only know if you’ve been in those shoes.

She says that the experiences of the last year pushed her to a new place of expression, a place where she had to release the thoughts and feelings that were bubbling to the surface from the deepest places in her soul. She wrote bad poetry in the middle of the night and she created art related to the things she was experiencing.

She says…

“When you tap into those really deep places of facing your death - stuff just has to bubble up. When you go that deep, you hit something and it has to bubble out of it.”

A research project that proves the power of art on cancer patients

Even before her own experience battling cancer Erin was deeply interested in the impact art could have on those fighting life-threatening diseases. She was awarded a research grant from the state of Maine to do an 8-week study which was called, “The Effects of a Live Painter in a Chemotherapy Treatment Facility.” The project was designed to provide exactly what the name implies - and measure the results.

With the help of a friend who is a Social Psychologist, they conducted the study and published their findings in the Journal for Oncology Nursing. What did they discover? There were four primary findings...

1. The presence of the artist lowers anxiety
2. It changes the feeling of the environment
3. It creates a spontaneous community among the patients
4. As a side-benefit: the project lessened the degree of compassion fatigue experienced by the nurses

Clearly, art and the creation of it matters in life and death contexts, making not just the experience of those undergoing treatment better but also helping those who care for them to provide even better care.

Art is about the human soul - and we don’t touch it

Do you spend more time thinking about making art than actually making it? Start things you never finish? Make work and then stack it against the wall, facing inward, so you don't have to look at it?

If any of that sounds familiar, I'd love to chat.

Click here: savvypainter.com/survey to tell me what's going on. If it seems like I need more info, I'll reach out to schedule a call.

Thanks so much!

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