Living Proof Exhibit Celebrates 10th Anniversary, Providing Free, Priceless Support
Saturday In The Arts is a weekly feature looking at a person, topic, or trend of interest in the Quad-Cities and nationwide.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all
True to Emily Dickinson’s 1861 poem, Living Proof Exhibit (LPE) offers that most priceless, transcendent thing – hope – through free programs that provide arts opportunities to cancer patients, survivors, family members and caregivers. The Moline-based nonprofit is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this year – with “Make Hope Soar: The Birdhouse Project,” a new “Visualization of Hope” art exhibit at the Figge Art Museum, and its third-annual Flourish fundraiser Sept. 10.
“We want to get art in the hands of as many people as possible,” LPE executive director Pamela Crouch said recently. “It’s a very stressful time for people touched by cancer. It’s a very stressful time for everyone, but that added stress of a cancer diagnosis during a pandemic, we really want to make sure we get the arts into everyone’s home and everyone’s hands, so they can keep their hands busy and help their minds and hearts to calm.”
A four-time cancer survivor, Crouch was first diagnosed in 2008 with breast cancer. A writer prior to her diagnosis, during chemotherapy she developed aphasia, which meant that she couldn’t remember her nouns.
One day she sat at home, bald, puffy from the steroids, unemployed and feeling very sorry for herself. Then it hit her – As a creative person (Crouch has many acting credits as well), she just needed to find a new way to create. She went to a hobby store, bought little birdhouses and painted them with pink roofs. She gave them to newly diagnosed cancer breast cancer patients.
Pamela Crouch
Along the way, she discovered that doing something for someone else made her feel better. “Art has always been part of my life,” she has said. “Chemotherapy took away my ability to write or even be on stage. I was sitting around feeling sorry for myself and decided to start painting birdhouses. I painted the roofs pink and planned to give the birdhouses to newly diagnosed breast cancer patients. I discovered that you cannot be sad when you are creating pink-roofed birdhouses.”
This spring, Crouch brought back that principle with the new birdhouse project, asking the public to paint small abodes for the winged creatures, to be given away for free to cancer patients. She’s gotten more than 200 back so far and the deadline to participate is Sept. 18.
“ ‘Make Hope Soar: The Birdhouse Project’ was originally planned to help celebrate our 10th anniversary. Making little birdhouses, painting them and giving them away to newly diagnosed cancer patients was one of the first programs Living Proof Exhibit did, and we wanted to bring it back,” Crouch said. “As it turns out, it’s a good thing that we did.
“It’s offered the community, not only the Quad-Cities, but we have people in Kentucky, in Texas, people across the nation, making and painting little birdhouses.”
“On the bottom of each birdhouse, we’re asking people to include a little note of hope or something inspirational and these birdhouses will be distributed not only to cancer patients and survivors, but also perhaps to a caregiver or a family member,” she said.
“Because of the pandemic, scout groups that couldn’t work together are creating birdhouses; churches that can’t meet are creating birdhouses.”
A birdhouse painted by Sue Sharp.
“They’re each creating something that’s going to bring joy to someone who’s going through a really tough time,” Crouch said. “Right now, the stress from the pandemic is off the charts for people who have been touched by cancer.”
“People aren’t getting out; they need to keep their hands busy,” she said. “The Birdhouse Project has changed because of the pandemic, but it was perfect because of the pandemic.”
The instructions for the project – at www.livingproofexhibit.org/post/makehopesoar – are:
- Purchase a birdhouse online or at a local hobby store, or build your own. (Birdhouses should be no larger than a 4 to 5-inch square base.) If you order from Amazon to avoid leaving your house, please note they are prioritizing their shipping to essential items.
- Your birdhouse can be an ornament or freestanding.
- Decorate your birdhouse in any fashion — paint, paper, bedazzling — the only limit is your imagination! No special talents needed!
- Write a message of encouragement on the underside of the birdhouse such as “Sending warm thoughts”, “Thinking gently of your health”, or “You are loved.” Please don’t use “Get well soon” as the artwork may be shared with a child of a patient or a caregiver.
Getting family and friends involved
Terri Reinartz, a Davenport grandmother, has led the effort for dozens of family members and friends to paint their own birdhouses for Living Proof. She met Crouch in 2010 at a breast-cancer support group and has been part of Living Proof since the start that year.
Terri Reinartz’s grandson Jack painting a birdhouse.
“When I was going through chemo, I did a lot of puzzles,” Reinartz said, noting she designs her own puzzles – which she calls “healing puzzles for cancer patience.”
“They’re for all the waiting we have to do, between treatment, biopsies, and labs,” she said. “Doing puzzles helped; it kept my mind active and it calmed me down, took me out of that sick mode. I’ve designed puzzles, doing that 10 years, and work with a company in Wisconsin, which gives me a good deal. I keep them in in the trunk of my car.
“It’s amazing how many times at the grocery store, I see someone with their head covered, I can tell they’re going through something, and I give one to them,” she said.
Reinartz has participated in LPE creative sessions, exhibited art in their displays of work from cancer survivors, and volunteered with cancer infusion centers.
At the beginning of a new art class, “there won’t be a lot of talking, about halfway through, you start to see relationships form,” she said. “People talk to one another, by the end, there’s laughing, a lot of chatter. It’s amazing the bond you can have with these people, while you’re creating something.”
A group LPE painting Reinartz worked on.
“It’s exciting to me to create something beautiful with other people,” Reinartz, who’s now also on the LPE board for two years, said. Of her friend Crouch, she said: “She’s an incredible person, and so giving.”
“Pamela, despite everything that’s going on in her life, she’s working for other people,” she said. “It’s just so touching. I respect her so much. I think the art and all of this is keeping her alive, despite all her medical issues now and over the years.”
Reinartz and her two grandsons, Jack and Henry.
To date, Living Proof Exhibit has provided free Creative Sessions to more than 2,500 participants. Creative Sessions are free of cost and open to anyone impacted by cancer of any artistic skill level.
Among the places Reinartz has taken birdhouses are the Kahl Home (where her mom lived until her death in March) and the Humility of Mary convent.
One neighbor, her mom died of cancer, and this young woman is caring for her brother’s children, since he passed away. “She was so touched by the activity, and said ‘I was thinking about my mother and it really gave me peace’,” Reinartz recalled.
She also loved painting birdhouses with her grandsons, ages 2 and 7, who got covered in paint.
“I think they will be very touching,” she said of the inspiring birdhouses. “It’s amazing how somebody says something to you at just the right time, whatever the message is, the person who reads that. You don’t know….we were doing virtual tours of the Figge, with cancer patients, and one woman you would think was not very well educated, led a pretty simple life, we asked if she wanted to go on this tour. She absolutely loved it. She had some so much conversation with the docent at the Figge, it was amazing to see.”
A painting Reinartz will display at the Figge.
Docents at the Figge using the Genie robot.
In 2018, LPE and the Figge started a partnership with Genesis Health System, offering virtual gallery tours for cancer patients undergoing treatment, through state-of-the-art technology with the use of robot “Genie,” literally a video screen on wheels (like a Segway).
During chemotherapy, patients are with a volunteer familiar with the program — can “drive” the robot from the connected laptop; zoom in and out to examine artwork, and can video-chat with a Figge staffer or docent who’s with Genie — similar to how Skype or FaceTime work.
In 2015, Genesis — already using robotic systems for minimally-invasive surgery — acquired Genie to conduct remote tours of the Figge for Genesis patients and the general public.
The goal then was eventually to give people with disabilities, the homebound, and elderly with limited mobility similar tours from remote locations. LPE’s mission is to enrich the lives of those impacted by cancer through the therapeutic benefits of the arts.
Birdhouses by Marcia Starr and Jolene Roete.
Its programs include free art-therapy classes and exhibits of art by cancer survivors, including rotating works since 2015 at UnityPoint Health-Trinity Cancer Center at Moline’s 7th Street and John Deere Road. LPE first showed art from cancer survivors at the Figge in 2014, and got a grant from the Quad Cities Community Foundation to buy the laptop.
“For a long time, I’ve been trying to get the therapeutic benefits of the arts into infusion centers,” Crouch said in 2018 of helping chemo patients as they spend hours with IV treatments. “We couldn’t bring in paints, couldn’t bring in clay. What could we do?”
Through a sponsorship by Genesis, the Figge acquired BeamPro software to guide remote tours of the museum. The hospital also funded the Figge’s three-year lease of Genie.
The visualization of hope through art
Crouch said people can arrange drop-off of their birdhouses by emailing livingproofexhibit@gmail.com. She will bring them to the Figge and have them displayed just for a few days during the next “Visualization of Hope” exhibit, which opens on Sept. 10.
“We want to get these birdhouses into the hands of people who need them. It’s not only the birdhouse; it’s the message of encouragement that’s on the bottom,” Crouch said.
“I had one delivered to me that had a working pinwheel on the top of it,” she said. “It’s awesome. There’s such a wide variety.”
“Even after we’re done displaying them and start dispersing them, in January we’ll have another project. The birdhouse project is what kept me going during my first chemo. It was one little birdhouse, it was small. I knew I was doing something good for someone else. That helps a lot with the stress of being isolated and the stress of cancer. You still feel like you’re part of a community.”
Online images decorate this house by Cindy Sue Jacobson
On Sept. 24, they’ll have a Zoom reception for the 25 exhibiting artists. Melissa Mohr from the Figge will moderate. Crouch will choose one work from each artist, talk about them, their influences, a little bit of their story. Everybody will get a wonderful feeling for the exhibition and be able to connect.
“It’s called ‘A Visualization of Hope,’ and I think we need that right now. We need to see and feel hope, so it’s very timely,” she said.
The survivor art comes from artists within a 200-mile radius of the Quad-Cities.
“It’s very safe, but we’re not going to have the large gathering; it will be virtual,” Crouch said. “Again, we have some artists who are from the Chicago area, who are from the Dubuque area, who can’t make it down here. They can actively participate, and they could say to their family in North Dakota, watch this.”
“This pandemic has been incredibly stressful on everything and it has opened up possibilities I think all of us are finding,” she said. “Living Proof’s mission is possibilities. We have to hope. Yes, and…what’s next? It’s been challenging, but we have been able to embrace it.”
“The exhibition is the only program we have that is only meant for cancer survivors,” Crouch said. “People who normally wouldn’t be able to see this exhibition, someone who’s 200 miles away or 2,000 miles away, can join us and participate in the visualization of hope. We all need hope, we all need joy, and I hope everyone will join us Sept. 24.”
An encouraging note on the bottom of a birdhouse.
“’A Visualization of Hope’ is especially important this year,” she said of the exhibit, which goes until Dec. 6. “Cancer patients and survivors have had to self-isolate even more than usual this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Artists have been keeping their hands busy so their minds and hearts can calm. The resulting works will reflect how art impacts health, and we believe that spirit of hope will shine through each piece.”
“With so much uncertainty in the world on top of being impacted by cancer, now more than ever is the time to explore how art can heal,” said Figge director of education Melissa Mohr. “This exhibition is the perfect outlet to share your cancer story through the creative process and we look forward to displaying the works this fall.”
“We talk a lot about in our programming, keeping your hands busy, to keep your mind and heart calm,” Crouch said. “A lot of people right now are doing that. They are keeping their hands busy, so they can calm and create. Any kind of disease takes something away from you, so when you create something tangible, there’s a power to it.”
LPE has its art exhibit every other year at the Figge, and also has shown in Peoria, Cedar Rapids and Dubuque. Last year, in Muscatine, they had 120 artworks. At the Figge, they average about 60 pieces, from cancer survivors and patients, Crouch said.
The abstract made concrete for Annawan artist
One of the artists who exhibits with LPE every year is Kent Broadbent, 65, of Annawan, Ill. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2010,
Kent Broadbent
which spread to his liver.
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“I love the freedom to do abstract expressionism using lines, colors, shapes and texture to evoke a feeling,” he said. Broadbent retired in 2017 from banking, as a commercial and ag lender.
A graduate of Illinois State University, with a psychology degree, he took numerous painting and sculpture classes, and continued to take drawing classes at Augustana College in Rock Island, after his graduation. He returned to work on his family farm, and took over the farming operation. Shortly after returning to the area, he married the love of his life, Cheryl.
After his cancer diagnosis and treatment, Broadbent took up art again. “He was painting again with new vigor with a newfound love and appreciation of life, and art,” says his website bio.
“Kent believes the cancer diagnosis was a blessing in disguise, and serves as his inspiration to create art,” it says. “His preferred medium is directed towards abstract expressionist lines, although he occasionally dabbles in abstract landscapes, from the scenes he deems of interest. During the last five years, he has been working exclusively in cold wax and oil, and loves the unique depth and richness that medium provides.”
An abstract painting by Broadbent.
Broadbent, who has won awards and his work is on permanent display throughout the region, said he doesn’t do the LPE creative sessions. He has a piece up at the UnityPoint cancer center.
“The people I’ve met help me realize I’m not alone in this struggle,” Broadbent said. “Realistically, it’s hard to tell other people about how you feel having cancer unless they’re another survivor. Then we understand each other, the emotions that are all involved.”
He’s enjoyed the artist receptions in past years, which they can’t have in person this year.
“You see the emotions of people there,” Broadbent said. “As a cancer survivor, there’s a lot of emotions. You try to hide, but when you get with other cancer survivors, it comes out.”
LPE has facilitated and organized cancer survivor artwork at the UnityPoint Health-Trinity Cancer Care Center in Moline, since 2015.
Walls of exam rooms in the center show the works of local and area cancer survivors, rotating pieces on a three-month basis. Accompanying each piece is a display card telling the story of the survivor/artist.
“As you’re in the exam room, waiting for your doctor, you can be inspired not only by beautiful artwork, but by the story of a cancer survivor,” Crouch said. “When you’re diagnosed, you want to hear those stories of survivorship.”
A time to “Flourish,” online
While LPE held its only fundraising event, Flourish, last year at the Putnam Museum & Science Center, Covid-19 has forced the benefit to also move online for its third year. That gives the nonprofit more time to offer auction bidding, from 6 p.m. Sept. 8 to 6 p.m. Sept. 11, with the actual event at 6 p.m. Sept. 10. For the first time, there’s no fee to register.
“One of the things that’s so important to us is that all of our programming is free, because cancer is so expensive,” Crouch said. “That support should be free.”
WQAD’s Denise Hnytka will lead a virtual art tour for “Flourish” on Sept. 10.
In past years, the admission cost for Flourish was $35. Donations are also encouraged. “Every dollar that we raise supports the programming,” she said. “Last year, we touched the lives of 7,500 people.”
This year, Flourish’s pre-recorded segments include an exclusive tour of artwork at a private garden, in the backyard of a local cancer survivor.
“Denise Hnytka is going to host the garden walk, so you can see a local garden, you get to see beautiful artwork of cancer survivors, and hear Denise talk about everyone,” Crouch said. She also filmed her friend and improv comedy veteran Patrick Adamson discussing auction items, including donated artwork from cancer survivors.
“We have just amazing, beautiful auction items,” she said. “How do you make the auction interesting? You get Patrick Adamson to narrate it.
“So each item, he had us in stitches,” Crouch said. “You should have seen Patrick. He would take each auction item, we gave him the description of what was in it, he’d look at it, and he’d think and like, OK. Some of them, he picked it up and it was, boom, right there. For the cancer survivor artwork, he was more poignant. He’s a wonderful actor; people forget about that. He’s just a wonderful human being and actor.”
“This is probably the most fun auction we’ll ever have,” she said. “Of course, we want people to bid. We wanted it to be exciting. One of the things Flourish has been, and described by participants, have said ‘This is the most nurturing fundraiser I’ve ever been to, the most relaxing fundraiser.’
“What can we do to create that feeling virtually?” she asked. “Having a garden walk in a private garden. Having Patrick with the auction, that there’s joy and energy. We have beautiful videos from some of our participants, we’ll be able to share the evening of. There’s fun and energy and beauty.
Pamela Crouch with her husband Chris at a 2010 exhibit.
“The whole idea is, people want to engage and relax, and support,” Crouch said. “The pandemic is highly stressful for everyone. Can you imagine, because I can – I’m going through it right now – being a cancer patient during a pandemic? That stress is through the roof. We have adapted our programming to meet the needs of people, and Flourish is an example of that, along with the fabulous sponsors, and the grants we’ve received.”
“Flourish has always been nurturing and joyful, and I’m happy to say even the recorded pieces are joyful.”
Every year, LPE distributes about 1,000 art-to-go projects and last year had 20 in-person creative sessions. Crouch has taught 17 online so far this year.
“Many people impacted by cancer really can’t get out to come to a creative session or are in a rural area and travel can be difficult in Midwest weather,” she said. “This year, because of the pandemic, we are able to mail out some of our projects.”
There are watercolor supplies and paper packaged in a box, funded by Moline Foundation and the Business Leadership Network. For $6 postage, people can receive a box, by emailing livingproofexhibit@gmail.com.
Because of Covid, LPE has been doing virtual creative sessions, starting in March, with Gilda’s Club. Crouch started sessions using household items, like toilet paper rolls and cans. “I would literally look around my house and said, if I’ve got it, other people can pick it up. We would have Zoom, with sticks and yarn,” she said. “Talk about using your imagination.”
Tara Moorman, a Cedar Rapids cancer survivor, with her art.
One person created a gorgeous macramé with them, Crouch said.
“The idea was, using your imagination to get through this pandemic,” she said. “We’ve taken our regular sessions and made them virtual. We had an instructor, able to have it Zoom. And everything is going up on our YouTube channel. Some of our instructors are out of state.”
A Muscatine class will be outside, and others aim to go outdoors as much as they can, with social distancing. “We have such terrific partners in the Quad-Cities and Muscatine,” Crouch said. “We really are lucky.”
LPE plans to do that hybrid (inside and outside) format in the future. “A lot of people in cancer treatment aren’t going to be comfortable coming out, but need this,” she said. “When your immunity is compromised, you’re more susceptible.”
During treatment, hospitals “are ridiculously secure, as far as being checked, which is great,” Crouch said. “So is the Figge. You make appointments; you have to wear masks. Their protocols are amazing.”
Royal support and a fairy-tale opera
Among LPE’s prized funders and sponsors are UnityPoint, WQAD, Moline Foundation, Jan Masamoto, dphilms, QC Botanical Center, Zimmerman Honda, IHMVCU, HyLife Oral Health, and Royal Neighbors of America (RNA).
RNA, the Rock Island-based life insurance and financial services company, awarded LPE a $10,000 Nation of Neighbors grant last November, and this year got a national award for a short film they did on Living Proof.
In the video (made by Phil Dingeldein of Rock Island-based dphilms), Crouch talked about how
A Living Proof creative session at work.
Nation of Neighbors recognizes work such as hers for “women making a difference in the community,” noting LPE serves men and women, since cancer affects everyone. “We’re not only working with people who have cancer, we’re working with family members,” she said. Currently, LPE participants are about 80 percent women.
While Living Proof started serving those affected by breast cancer, it quickly grew to serve those impacted by any cancer. In 2019, breast-cancer deaths represented just 6.9 percent of the more than 600,000 cancer deaths in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society.
This spring, RNA’s film on LPE won the small-company award for best video in the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship’s International Corporate Citizenship Film Festival.
The film festival was a perfect fit to reflect Nation of Neighbors and how women are helping others in the communities which RNA serves. The company has 215,000 members in 40-plus states, including 77 Q-C chapters (with 3,300 members), and 135 total employees (including 120 based in Rock Island).
“We are very excited to earn this recognition and to give a greater platform to Living Proof,” said Amy Jones, director of philanthropy for Royal Neighbors.
The RNA video also features Gina Kirschbaum, a cancer survivor and five-year LPE class instructor. A Bettendorf resident, she first had stage-3 melanoma in 2008, which came back twice. A former para-educator for special-needs kids, she quit in 2013 after developing lymphedema (caused by radiation treatments).
Kirschbaum has exhibited art with LPE starting in 2013, and has taught art classes since 2015. “It’s very relaxing, just to get your mind off what’s going on. And the camaraderie, when people are sitting around, they have that in common,” she said earlier this year. “But you don’t have to talk about it. You can just sit and laugh.”
“From the first time I met Pam, I could tell how dedicated she is to this and it’s her life,” she said in the video. “She’s a role model for me. I would have never dreamed that I’d be doing now what I am doing, and it’s because of getting in that first exhibit and getting the confidence. Getting asked to teach and teaching classes, it’s just amazing.”
“Getting involved in something like this, it’s given me something to really live for,” Kirschbaum said.
In late January, she held a free workshop for people impacted by cancer, to create decorated paper feathers that she later assembled into a six-foot-long wingspan. That will be displayed next February in the lobby of the Bartlett Performing Arts Center at Moline High School, where the new opera “Karkinos” – commissioned by LPE and the Quad City Symphony Orchestra – will have its premiere.
For “Karkinos,” Kirschbaum painted a six-foot circular sunset on the water, to be on stage. The feathers in the lobby will represent the collective strength of cancer survivors, she said. The opera (by Augustana’s Jacob Bancks) aims to provide hope and celebration for those with cancer and all who love them.
Following the coronavirus crisis, the opera may take on greater weight and meaning, Crouch said. While Covid-19 has caused over 180,000 U.S. deaths so far, cancer is expected to claim about 630,000 American lives in 2020, according to the CDC.
A painting LuAnn Haydon did at an LPE session.
“One of the things we have noticed for the past 10 years, our programming has been dealing with using the arts to reduce the stress associated with a disease,” Crouch said. “We always focus on cancer, but the arts — look at how many people are reaching out, not just to what we are doing. But they’re reaching out to artists; they’re reaching out to musicians. They’re reaching out to have the arts help them through the social isolation and stress of it.
“So coming together in February and celebrating the beautiful message, I think it even is going to be more meaningful.”
The opera’s world premiere was postponed from this May to Feb. 13, 2021. It will tell the story of a beautiful empress (representing a cancer patient) who’s forced into battle with the unseen monster Karkinos (cancer) on the night before her coronation. A maid represents cancer survivors and an angel represents the medical community.
LuAnn Haydon
“It’s an uplifting message of community. It’s a love story,” Crouch said, to be performed the night before Valentine’s Day.
LuAnn Haydon of East Moline feels the love of LPE every day.
“First, I lost both my mother and grandmother to cancer and promised myself that I would advocate for those who are going through the fight to be free of cancer,” said the retired manager of John Deere Pavilion, who serves on the LPE board.
“I also set my goals to always be involved in initiatives or organizations that support cancer survivors,” Haydon said. “When Pamela reached out to meet me to talk about LPE, I wanted to know all about the organization, to support Pamela on the growth of the organization and finally join as a board member, but also in support of friends that are either going through treatment or have beaten the disease.”
In a chaotic world where we’ve increasingly lost a sense of control and optimism, Reinartz and Haydon noted that LPE allows participants to triumphantly reclaim that, and be free to create, to make their hope soar.
“I feel free when I am actively creating any form of art,” Haydon said. “I am able to join LPE’s Creative Sessions and am surprised that I am able to create things that I never thought I could. What I like most is anything I can create with paint.”
“It gives me purpose, drive and comfort.”
For more information, visit livingproofexhibit.org.
