Current Course for UC Students and Area Cancer Survivors Previews New Art Therapy Certificate this Fall

The fine arts have a vital role to play in the art of healing. And because of that, a new class is currently underway at the University of Cincinnati, “Expressive Arts with Young Adult Cancer Patients and Survivors.”

Twenty fine arts students (two of whom are cancer survivors) are enrolled in this

UC Forward

course focusing on the theory and practice of using art to help those with serious illness express the emotional aspects and effects of their diseases and treatments. Also participating in the course are a number of young adults aged 18-30 who are either currently receiving treatment for cancer or are cancer survivors.

The course is led by Jenny Ustick, visiting assistant professor of fine arts. She is a leukemia survivor who used creative expression as a means of coping during her own treatment regimen as a college student.

The class serves as a preview for a new certificate in art therapy to be offered this fall via UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. Joining with Ustick in planning that minor have been Meera Rastogi, associate professor of psychology, and Kim Taylor, assistant professor of fine arts, both of UC Clermont College.

Ustick, who graduated UC’s School of Art with a master’s of fine arts (MFA) in 2005, explains that she was motivated to teach this course and help begin the minor because she knows the physical and emotional trauma of serious disease and its treatment. She states, “For those undergoing such treatments, art activities provide a space where they have control. It was like that for me. I relied on art as a form of journaling. I was painting my own story. It’s another form of release and communication. Patients may not always have the words to express the difficulties and challenges they face, so art provides additional tools for doing so. For me, it was a gift to work in that way as a patient.”

As part of the class, all the participants are producing works of art that they will exhibit at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center

April 18

. The works include stop-motion animation, print, illustration, collage and even short performances (which will be displayed as video).

For instance, three of those taking the course – all of them cancer survivors – are working as a team to create a mixed-media collage using screen prints among other elements – for  display at the arts center event. As inspiration for these works, they are looking back at the times they received cancer care as children.

UC fine arts senior A.J. Yorio, 22, of New Richmond, Ohio, is one of those students. He received treatment for leukemia from ages 7-10, and that time fed his later interest in art since it was at that time when he began drawing and exploring his artistic skills.

He recalls, “Art making, just drawing trucks and animals and the normal things kids draw allowed me to focus my energy, imagination and intellect. It took me away from the medicine and cancer treatments, and provided distance from that.”

Via this class, Yorio is now able to return to these drawings and the time they represent in order to make new art in a way he hasn’t before. He explains, “Before this class, I had not thought of dealing with my cancer experience in this way. I had never thought of art in relation to medicine in this way. It’s challenged me to think of art work in a new way.”

Fellow student and fine arts/art education junior Drew Yakscoe, 23, of Columbus, Ohio, had non-Hodgkin’s Burkitt’s lymphoma as a four-year-old, and he recalls that artists worked with him while he was in the hospital for treatments. That creative outlet, in turn, “influenced me to enter the fine arts as a college student.”

In the future, Yakscoe hopes to use the lessons he’s learning about art therapy in some way, perhaps in community art projects.

• Apply to UC's undergraduate fine arts program.