Alumna Brings Arts to Ailing Youth
“Naomi was a typical teenager,” Mendelsohn recalls. “It was hard to comprehend that we were so close in age yet living such different lives. I was about to graduate high school, thinking about prom and college applications, while Naomi was fighting to stay alive. Before she passed she asked what organs she could donate, and she could only give the corneas of her eyes because the rest of her body was so diseased. Naomi agreed, saying, ‘I want someone else to see the beauty of this world through my eyes.’ I will never forget her strength and courage. It continues to be an inspiration to me.”
Years later, after successfully completing her undergraduate degree at Gallatin, Mendelsohn felt compelled to create something that would keep her cousin’s spirit alive; thus, ArtWorks, The Naomi Cohain Foundation was born.
At NYU, Mendelsohn had focused her studies on marketing and communications, combining courses in public relations, business, and speech along with internships in marketing and entertainment. The notion of “risk taking” had always fascinated her, so she made it the subject of her senior colloquium, discussing texts on topics as varied as the Holocaust and corporate strategy. After graduation she landed a job at an Internet company, but in a year she began to feel unfulfilled, and when 9/11 occurred it forced her to reevaluate her path. She came up with the idea for ArtWorks after she attended a memorial service for another friend who had fallen to cancer and she recalled her cousin’s desire to be remembered after her death.
Cohain had loved music, painting, and making jewelry, and she sought comfort in the arts during her struggle with cancer. So Mendelsohn decided to create an organization that would give this same empowerment and relief to other children suffering from chronic and life-threatening illnesses. She worked with Cohain’s oncologist, a close family friend, to develop a mission statement for her organization. Then she tested her own capacity to take risks by quitting her job to focus on the foundation full time.
Working out of a storage room in the back of her father’s office, she began fundraising and developing ArtWorks’s inaugural event, Express Yourself-NY, a creative and performing arts exhibition. She contacted major New York hospitals to encourage their patients to take part, and eight months later she launched the exhibit with the participation of six hospitals and 58 children. 300 guests attended the March 2003 show, and the gratitude of the families and hospital staff was palpable. Mendelsohn, then 24, was overwhelmed.
“I will never forget looking around the venue that day, with all of the artwork displayed and the ArtWorks banner hanging high with Naomi’s name across it,” she says. “When the room filled up with so many kids, I felt overjoyed. I remember watching this adorable four-year-old girl who had a piece of artwork in the show. She arrived dressed up in her best clothes. You could see it took all of her strength just to walk through the front door. But she picked up her name badge, walked over to her artwork and beamed while others walked by and asked questions about her piece. You could tell she truly felt like a celebrity and for a moment forgot about being sick. Unfortunately, she passed away only a few months after that. Her mother later thanked us for making her daughter feel so special and for giving them a happy memory during a very dark time in their lives.”
This spring marked the five-year anniversary of ArtWorks’s first showcase, and on March 16 the foundation held its 12th Express Yourself event at NYU’s Kimmel Center for University Life with 120 children from ten participating hospitals and healthcare agencies. ArtWorks regularly hosts the showcases in New York and New Jersey, with 22 area hospitals participating in its programs. For some time Mendelsohn did all of the foundation’s work on her own, but she now has a program coordinator on staff, along with interns and a committed group of volunteers.
ArtWorks’s interactive, educational, and therapeutic programming has grown to include a traveling art show that brings elements of the Express Yourself exhibits to hospitals and local galleries, custom-designed mobile carts filled with art supplies that are placed in hospitals, and an artist-in-residence program that offers multi-disciplinary weekly workshops for patients and their siblings. The Express Yourself exhibitions continue to grow from year to year; this March’s event featured 112 pieces of artwork and 19 performances.
In the future, Mendelsohn hopes to expand ArtWorks’s geographical scope to other major metro areas near prominent children’s hospitals, such as Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. Ultimately, she’d love to bring ArtWorks to Israel, Cohain’s home country.
“I had no idea what to expect when this whole journey began,” she relates. “I just wanted to provide kids with the open, safe, and loving forum to express themselves through the arts, and to give them a day to work towards and look forward to. I want them to feel celebrated for their achievements rather than focus on the pain of their illnesses.”
ArtWorks is always looking for volunteers and interns. For more information, visit www.artworksfoundation.org.
