Witnessing The Healing Power of Art: What No Research Can Show
By Dima Kroma
Youth, Family, & Adult Learning Manager
Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens
There are moments in a museum that never appear in exhibition catalogs or annual reports. They aren’t measured by attendance numbers or balance sheets. Instead, these moments live quietly in the hearts of the people who experience them. As museum educators, we hope visitors leave our galleries, studios, and gardens changed in some small way. We carefully design experiences that inspire curiosity, foster connection, and create spaces where people can pause and breathe. Yet every so often, the greatest transformation is not only experienced by our visitors. Sometimes, it happens to us.
Recently, the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens welcomed families from the Lone Warrior Foundation, an organization that supports single parents courageously navigating cancer while raising their children. I was honored to coordinate their visit. We began with a docent-led tour, then gathered for a printmaking workshop that I taught.
For two beautiful hours, these families weren’t patients. They weren’t defined by appointments, diagnoses, treatment schedules, or medical charts. Their cancer was not the center of the room; their art was.
