The Art Of Hospice

What do you think of when you hear the word “hospice”? If anxious images of helplessness, hopelessness and death flash through your mind, the folks at VNA Hospice of Indian River County would like to have a word with you. More than that, they want to show you some pictures, read you a poem and play some music for you.

This fall VNA Hospice is making the point that creative expression is a part of existence that everyone shares, no matter one’s place on life’s continuum. While illness and death are part of human life, art is a vital reminder of our shared humanity. And that is why VNA Hospice teamed up with the Vero Beach Museum of Art earlier this year to work on “The Art of Hospice,” a project that paired patients, their families and VNA staff members with local artists. The artists, who underwent training as VNA Hospice volunteers, used their experience with hospice to create works that reflect the compassion, serenity and even joy that hospice can bring to life’s end. 

The result of the project is the “The Art of Hospice” exhibition, which opened to the public in the Education Gallery of the Vero Beach Museum of Art on October 31 and will continue through December 9 to coincide with National Hospice Month in November. 

“The Art of Hospice” has its roots in Jacksonville’s Northeast Florida Community Hospice, which commissioned nine artists—painters and writers, a printmaker, a storyteller/musician and a photographer—to create a body of work titled “The Art of Hospice Care.” The project culminated in an exhibition at the local Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in November 2005.

Read the entire article in the November 2007 issue