The Art of Healing, Threads of Resilience, Healing Arts, Heritage and Culture Series hosted by the VI Breast Cancer Project continues on Monday from 3 to 6 p.m. with a Self-Portrait Sketching Class, at Fort Frederik on King Street in downtown Frederiksted on St. Croix. Curator and artist Monica Marin is the featured instructor. Enrollment is open to all cancer survivors, and seating is limited. A few seats remain.
Studies have shown that art has a way of soothing the soul. Whether you create art as a vocation or as a novice, it has a calming and often therapeutic effect on our well-being. This is the intent behind the art therapy classes, which began in early 2022 with a Sip & Pour art class that was hosted in cooperation with the Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts.
A cancer survivor herself, co-founder Diane J. Hampton continues to advocate for the inclusion of the U.S. Virgin Islands in the national dialogue on cancer research. She designed the Art of Healing, Threads of Resilience, Healing Arts, Heritage and Culture Series as a means to uplift and inspire cancer survivors during the most challenging time of their lives, the release states.
The recent Art of Healing Through Painting class, led by Victoria Rundberg-Rivera, is a prime example of the positive impact art classes can have on attendees’ hearts and minds. A retired physician, author/poet/painter, Rundberg-Rivera is a virtual Renaissance woman. Held on the evening of May 25 at the Cane Roots Gallery in Christiansted, the event drew cancer survivors and patients in treatment, who expressed their appreciation for the free classes, which have ranged from vision board healing to silk dyeing, wire sculpture, and watercolor painting. Mona Petersen, a cancer survivor and ardent supporter of the VIBCP, said she found the painting class very revealing, adding, “I was amazed to discover my ‘inner artist’, a skill set I never knew I had.”
The art classes and forums hosted by the Virgin Islands Breast Cancer Project are sponsored by the St. Croix Foundation for Community Development and are free for all cancer survivors. Woodworking and other art classes are planned for later this summer and fall.
For registration, email vibreastcancerproject@gmail.com.
