Our Story

About Our Founder

Art Health & Healing was founded by health care professional Paul Braswell in 2018. Paul has had a lifelong passion for art, which he has expressed through collecting a wide variety of art and hosting creative initiatives to increase access to the arts in the community.

At 49 years of age, he discovered he needed a kidney transplant. During his nine-year healing journey, he experienced first-hand that the powerful energy contained in art does indeed heal.

A Registered Nurse specializing in Perioperative Services since 1990, Paul is uniquely positioned to bring the arts into institutional settings to facilitate healing. He is now working with other health care professionals to transform their settings with hands-on arts education and exhibitions.

As Paul discovered, the arts can reawaken the feelings of happiness so often buried by serious life challenges. AH&H became a 501c3 nonprofit in 2019 to offer Paul’s experience to chronically ill patients.

– Paul W. Braswell, RN

Community Impact

As a developing organization, we are excited to share that we have begun to build our provider and referral network and have identified Da Vita Bertha Sirk Dialysis as the flagship center for our pilot programming. AHNH is working to identify participants who will receive long-term therapeutic art and education workshops in the upcoming year. Participants will include patients and health care providers. Since 2019, we have reached 25 individuals. These have been a blend of health care providers, artists and art purveyors, high-need individuals with chronic conditions, and general public members of our Maryland community.

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Objectives & Goals

Overall, it is our goal to enable participants to use artistic expression to process their conditions and bolster their resilience.

Specifically, this year we seek to:

Reach 75 individuals with chronic medical conditions
Facilitate 5 art therapy workshops throughout Maryland
Curate and display 3 traveling gallery showcases at local centers
Promote art, health, and wellness by participating in 3 educational fairs throughout the region
Ensure at least 90% of participants report a decrease in feelings of anxiety, pain or depression
Ensure at least 90% of participants report increased arts engagement as a result of the program
Grow our referral network (including artists, educators and institutions, art therapists, psychologists, and other medical providers/professional) to over 10 partners

Statement of Need

Enduring a chronic condition can chip away at a person’s overall well-being. The intersection between physical and mental health is extremely intertwined, and managing chronic physical symptoms often leads to patients developing depression, anxiety, and other health issues (Journal of Pain, 2010). These exacerbated symptoms then further wear on an individual, resulting in a lower health-related quality of life.

  Unique to individuals with chronic illness is the need to process that their condition will be with them for the long-term, which can further weaken their mental well-being. Taking part in creative activities has been proven to have a positive impact on people’s mental health (National Alliance for Arts, Health and Wellbeing, 2017). Overall, there is evidence that engagement with artistic activities, either as an observer of the creative efforts of others or as an initiator of one’s own creative efforts, can enhance an individual’s moods, emotions, and other psychological states (Stuckey & Nobel 2010).

  A major obstacle to individuals with chronic conditions is that full engagement in art is limited by their lack of access to artistic collections or displays. Supplementing standard treatment plans with art therapy is not something that most clinicians have the capacity to implement (American Art Therapy Association, 2018). Therefore, there is a significant need for organizations such as AH&H to work with clinicians and connect art with medical treatment.

 Art has the power to heal. Coordinating a team to rally around a patient’s holistic health model provides individuals with the ability to build self-resilience, enhance independence and confidence, and reduce feelings of anxiety, pain, or depression. (American Journal of Public Health, 2010). Ultimately, placing art in health care settings enriches both the patients’ chances of recovery and the health care providers’ performance. That magical combination taps into the power of art, achieving success and wellness in a mutually beneficial partnership for everyone.