Artwork displayed at McLaren Cancer Institute and McLaren Breast Center sparks hope, strength, courage, faith and love for the patients.
It was the focus for Clarkston Junior High School students in Arlinda Crossland’s Art 82 class.
Each student created a piece to to encourage patients as they go through treatment.
“I was very excited to have this group of students to work with because I have worked with them in the past,” said Crossland. “They all have tremendous potential and they exceeded my expectations with the project.”
Kylie Kalinowski hopes her piece “Angel of Hope” helps the patients. She used acrylic paint for her picture of an angel with the word hope with the pink breast cancer ribbon used as the “o.”
Her inspiration came from the “Angel of Hope” her grandmother received the second time she had breast cancer.
“She conquered breast cancer twice,” Kalinowski added. “She keeps it on her mantel. It is what the drawing is based off of because of hope and how it was looking over her while she had cancer. It helped my Busha get through it so maybe it will help others.
Jenise Morales’s inspiration came from one of her favorite characters – Sonic the Hedgehog.
“It is something I am into but I put my own spin on it,” she added.
She used acrylic gold paint to make it shine and stand out more and had Sonic hold one of the cancer ribbons on his finger.
While thinking about the project, she considered how patients would feel when they saw it.
Lauren Pitylak drew two horses with charcoal onto white paper and chose horses to signify strength and courage.
“It signifies what people are going through and what they need to get through their cancer,” she added. “It’s nice because other people get to see it and it can effect them while they are waiting.”
August Allen wanted her art piece to bring happiness when people people looked at it so created an arcylic collage in shape of a heart.
She added it was nice to have it there because a family member had been at McLaren for cancer treatment.
“It is nice to share it,” she said.
Caelen Kramer and Max Anderson used tape with their painting to create an interesting design along with the word hope mixed into it.
“I wanted to make something looking cool and interesting so people would look at it and think about it,” said Anderson. “It makes me feel good to think I impacted someone.”
Alex Touchstone created two pieces to display at McLaren and thinks it is good all the artwork is on display.
“It makes everyone happy to know someone is there for them,” she smiled.
“They really worked hard to make positive statements and do their best,” Crossland added. “I was very proud of their growth and development with this project. They did a great job. They had a lot of freedom because I let them pick whatever medium they wanted to work in. they were really self-motivated. It showed higher thinking because they had the theme and they had to think of how they wanted to represent it. I had to force them to make decisions.”
Crossland had the idea after seeing an article about students in her community doing it for Beaumont. She called McLaren and they said yes.
“The results are impressive. McLaren is a lovely facility,” Crossland added. “It is a great thing the people in community to see what the kids are producing. I think we should have more opportunities to show off everything the kids produce in the community. They are awesome.”
McLaren is off of Sashabaw Road.