City of Hope live chalk art supports cancer patients

Alright, so we wanna bring in our Eli Jordan now, who is doing a cancer chalk exhibit. Talk a little bit about that, what it represents, and what organizers hope that people take from it. Hey, good afternoon, Eric. Yeah, I'm at the City of Hope, where they're doing something new. They haven't done this before. It's their very first chalk art presentation, and they're calling it the healing power of art and hope, and hope and art, and either way, they're interchangeable. But, right now with me is, we can call him the curator of the chalk art exhibit here, Dr. Nathan Neufeld, and you're the chief of supportive care as well, and also pain doctor. Yeah. And thank you very much for your time. So, you decided to get some chalk artists out here and have them do their thing, correct? Yeah, it's a really neat thing. I think, one, it's great for the patients to see something a little different, but also we have a lot of artists, and I think a lot of patients that really appreciate the art, whether it's something that can just help them with their emotional struggles, or can give them some encouragement, and there's so much fun that we can have with it. So, we had a couple of artists, one of which is actually a patient of Dr. Godby. Dr. Godby is a gynecologist oncologist, and came up with this beautiful depiction of her, which is really lifelike, amazingly. It is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And there's a lot of fields. It's the artist. And just such a neat- A lot of fields. Good job, Lotta. Oh, man. Perfect. Yeah. And then we had another artist, Catherine. She actually created a magnolia flower that's a personification of just the Georgia flower, and something that really expresses hope for us here, which is obviously really important. My cat. Yeah, way to go. Yeah. And then we have Katie. Katie Bush. She actually created this as the Garden of Hope, is what she called it. And it's kind of a cool depiction of just the community, the ecosystem of how things work together, and how that kind of impacts our patients. So, again, art has this really cool power of kind of expressing things outside of what even words can do, and allows, I think, even opening up neuropathways, and allowing you to see color and expression. And creation of hope is, I think, largely a positivity experience. And so it's cool to see how patients often do work through this, and there's a lot of evidence and research to support, actually, art and expression of art as a way of healing. And so we really focus on trying to heal outside of our bodies, as well as in our bodies. We're spiritual beings, and we're physical beings, and we have a soul and a mind, and it's kind of blending that all together as we heal the process of fighting cancer. Just something about when you witness something peaceful and beautiful, that does something to the body. Absolutely. And it's like, it's a vibe, you know? Do you think as a pain doctor, as a doctor, that contributes to healing? Oh, absolutely. I think, you know, I actually have given a couple lectures on how the creation of hope and the environment of hope actually helps decrease suffering. And that's really what, in the end, we're trying to do. We want to decrease people's suffering. It's a love gift that we have and we want to give. And I think that's so important. And art is just one more facet of how we do that. And it's kind of like, you know, one of the biggest facets of life is hope. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, we live with hope all the time. Without it, we have so little, really. And so I think it's an exciting thing to participate in that, whether it's a spiritual hope journey or whether it's a physical hope journey of being able to eradicate cancer or the combination of all of it. I think it's important for us as medical providers to be aware of it and also participate in it. And just to hope to see children grow up and see another day and all that. How's the reception been here so far? Yeah, it's been great. We've had a great time and able to interact with the artists and kind of hear their stories of what inspired their depiction of hope and the art that they drew. And yeah, it's been really, really neat to get everyone together and just kind of celebrate this as an organization. Awesome. Well, this has been a just proceed doing more of this, continuing this. Yeah, I think, you know, it's been so positive. I think there's a plan to probably do this at least regularly. And yeah, it's really, really been fun. Awesome. Thank you, Dr. Nathan Neufeld. Appreciate your time out here and good job on getting some art and artists out here at City of Hope here in Noonan. And that's what's been going on out here. Eric, you can see that artists have been like putting in the midnight oil and getting all the detail here and they have unveiled the sidewalk chalk art here at City of Hope. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Oh, thank you, doctor. You know, Eli, it's one of those things to where when you're going through a journey and a battle like that, just seeing those small glimpses of just beautiful artwork, I'm sure is so inspiring for so many people. Really beautiful work there. I know you'll be throughout the rest of our newscast or the rest of our streaming shows two and three o'clock. Can't wait to see more interviews and more beautiful artwork there.