UArts Exhibit Highlights Art's Role In Healing

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A new art exhibition has opened at the University of the Arts, exploring the role of art in healing.

One illustration instructor at UArts whose art is part of the current display says art helped him win his battle against cancer.

Senior instructor Christian Patchell (known as "Patch" to his students) says he rediscovered the importance of keeping a sketch book while undergoing treatment for tongue cancer.

"For an hour every day, while I underwent treatment, I drew in my sketchbook," Patch recalls, "and that was the hour every day that I didn't have cancer."

"I sat and I drew.  And it's funny, too -- when I look back on what I drew from that time, they were many of the same images I drew as a child."

He says the monsters, superheroes, and comics comforted him during that time.

Now, "The Art of Healing" exhibition at the student-run Gallery One at the University of the Arts, showcases Patch's work.  Also included is the work of Helen Wallace, an arts animation senior who was diagnosed with breast cancer this summer.

The art will stay up through November 26th at the gallery in Hamilton Hall, at Broad and Pine Streets.

Reported by Michelle Durham, KYW Newsradio 1060.