Paint your frustration away: Lethbridge hospital offers the public a chance to create a masterpiece

Patients, their families and friends, and the public are putting together personal masterpieces at the Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge.

The Indigenous Health Program and Therapeutic Recreation worked together to put on the event, called Art in the Atrium, on Wednesday afternoon where people could come and work on a watercolour landscape painting to celebrate southern Alberta.

The event was open to anyone, including patients and their loved ones.

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Both groups say art, and painting in particular, offers stress and emotional release.

“Art in general can be used in so many ways and it has a really therapeutic element in being able to create storytelling, relaxation for some people – self-expression,” recreational therapist Heidi Davis said. “And in the hospital, I think it’s a really important journey to health and wellness.”

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Indigenous Health also said this provides cultural awareness and sensitivity between staff, doctors, patients and the community.