Ted Meyer: The Artistic Patient Advocate

Art is being used to create empathy in the hearts of Doctors. How? Meet Ted Meyer as he tells us how he does it on this episode of Vessel: Art as a Doorway.

TED TALK
https://www.tedmed.com/talks/show?id=620414

Ted Meyer
www.tedmeyer.com
www.artandmed.com

Instagram
@tedmeyerart

Email
artandmed@gmail.com

Check out our website at:
http://www.clss.studio

Email:
leah@leahsmithson.com
channingsmithson@gmail.com

Hang out with us on Instagram:
@leahsmithsonart
@justglazechanning

Transcript

spk_1:   0:05
Hi, this is Leah

spk_0:   0:06
and this is Channing

spk_1:   0:07
and you've reached Vessel Art is a doorway.

spk_0:   0:10
Welcome to Episode three.

spk_1:   0:18
It's been such a crazy week during this time of social distancing, I was supposed to have a show, but I'm not going to be able to do the physical show because it's not safe. So what I've been working on is pushing technology, and I've been working, working really hard the past month, putting together virtual reality art show that also incorporates augmented reality so people can not only see the show with or without goggles, but they can also take the paintings and artworks and see what it would look like in their own house. Walk up to it, walk around it and it's been fun. But it's been a lot of work.

spk_0:   1:00
Yes, I would highly recommend everyone check out this show because I don't think I've ever seen anything like this. Lee, you did a phenomenal job with just the thought process. With this, everyone, if you can please go to C. L s s dot studio, that's class without a dot studio sina or the email so that Lear can give you access into the show it is phenomenal. I've never seen anything like this.

spk_1:   1:25
I really appreciate you saying that The theme of the show is when there are no words, which reminds me of the artist that we're going to introduce today. It's fantastic interview. Ted Mayer

spk_0:   1:37
Was your female, you show reminded its admire.

spk_1:   1:40
It reminds me of Ted Meyer because he uses art to create empathy and the hearts of other people.

spk_0:   1:47
Yeah, just to kind of give you a little bit of background on, said some of his work and his cure ations have been in the United Nations, the National Museum of Health and Medicine, U. C. L. A. De Brabant Museum of Art, ST John the Divine and galleries all over Asia and Europe.

spk_1:   2:05
Ted is an artistic patient advocate, and he'll tell you a lot more what that means. But he works for USC and he gets hired by quite a few other companies, is just amazing to hear how he uses art as a conduit of understanding between people of various backgrounds, and he helps to deliver emotion or empathy in a way that would be really difficult to do with words. And that's sort of similar to the subject of the art show that I'm working on when there are no words, because sometimes in certain situations, or if you've ever had a friend and they're just times where you just sit together and you just understand each other on this level and you don't even need words. So just so there's no confusion. His name is Ted. But he also did a Ted talk specifically for Ted Med. And one of the things he talks about is hiss, scar print Siri's where he uses people's bodies specifically areas where they have scars and has made prints. And he's had such an amazing, overwhelmingly amazing response. And he'll talk to us more about that in the interview.

spk_0:   3:12
Yeah, it's so interesting to see how his work is really affecting the medical community, but we're not going to keep you waiting. Listening to this interview of Ted Mine. Okay, a little audience were with the magnificent, its head Meyer. That's it. We're honored to be in your presence.

spk_2:   3:36
Well, I'm thrilled to

spk_0:   3:37
have a and your studio is amazing. What is this? This I've never seen? I never see the studio like this. Could you

spk_2:   3:45
describe What? We're old military bunkers. After World War Two, they were moved to L. A. And they have quite the history. They were a auto parts store. It was the clubhouse for the Mongols in the seventies. Well, and most recently, it was a crime scene cleanup business.

spk_0:   4:02
Well, wow. So we air intense studio in It is magnificent. If you ever get an invitation, I would highly recommend coming. You know, just somebody's paintings. Oh, man. How would you describe this lead? I don't know.

spk_1:   4:16
I don't know. Two? Definitely an avid collector.

spk_2:   4:19
Yeah. So this is all my all my friends work in the living area.

spk_0:   4:24
Yes. Wonderful. Ted. Ted His, I guess, to really describe what he is. He's an artistic patient advocate. So throughout this interview, you're going to hear ah, little bit about said his background, his perspective on art, his interaction with patients who had some terrible things happen to them and how he beautifies the subject.

spk_1:   4:50
Also, one thing that I really appreciate about him is how he not only uses his artwork to help people heal, you know, emotionally with some of the things that they're physical body has gone through. But also how he uses that to help educate others and help instill in them and empathy.

spk_0:   5:08
Yeah, that's magnificent. That's it. And this is a little cat to I see her

spk_1:   5:13
power Power.

spk_0:   5:15
Power cat. Okay, he's beautiful. Eso Could you tell us a little bit about yourself? Just listening to some of your your talks, especially to talk to you. You mentioned Goche a disease and different things like that in your interaction with the number of patients. Could you give us audience Just a little understanding about your background and where you grew up in how you came into art.

spk_2:   5:38
All right, well, I grew up in New York. I am early sixties, so it's been a long time. I can hear my voice cracking as I'm saying, 60 and I was born with this genetic illness. It's called Go. She aced disease. It's ah, enzyme deficiency, and at the time it was diagnosed, they knew very little about it. There were only a few 100 people diagnosed, and a lot of them used to die because they didn't really know how toe to deal with it. So over the years I dealt with that. Luckily, it didn't do me in before they came up with the treatment and about 20 years ago and I h r lovely medical. But I would say the lovely United States medical system came up with re competent version of the enzyme I was missing. And as a result, I'm still here. Your tax dollars at work, I will add, Uh so anyway, at that point, I became relatively healthy. I mean, I have some side effects from when I was a kid. When I was young, I was in the hospital a lot. There were there was a lot of bone pain. I missed a lot of school. I was home. Home taught a lot. Not in the way people do it today. But I just kind of kept up with school at home. But now I'm pretty normal. So now I lead a relatively normal life with, you know, a few side effects from the pre treatment days. But I'm okay.

spk_1:   7:03
So what are some of your first memories of art in general? Like maybe even since you mentioned a lot of your childhood, you may have had to be in the hospital. Do you remember when you are having an impact there or visiting museums or,

spk_2:   7:18
well, my my first riel art memory is going with my parents to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and seeing Guernica because when I was a kid that was still in New Yorkers before they moved it back to Spain. And I have this memory of of walking into the museum and seeing it up sort of high on the wall. And it just had such an effect on me. And I think that a lot of my even years later having not seen it for, you know, now 50 years, the color palette that shapes the way that that painting had a narrative of people suffering and in pain and in terror probably had the most effect on me of any painting I'd ever seen. As far as work in the hospital. I always did work. When I was in the hospital, I always had my crayons with me and my magic markers, and that's sort of how I pass the time since I was in the hospital a lot.

spk_0:   8:17
Yeah, this interest. And so how do you feel that design creativity has changed you?

spk_2:   8:22
Well, I don't. I don't know if it's changed me, but I've I've just always adapted it to my situation. If I was in the hospital, I I would draw there. If I was home, I would draw their. The main thing is that having the illness really pushed that idea of doing work that has a narrative like Guernica or like Max Beckmann or some of these German Expressionists who were always telling stories with their artwork. So my work is very, you know, it's narrative. I don't do landscapes like Don't do flowers. I don't do things like that. My my work tends to be body based. The body's doing something. Yeah,

spk_0:   9:02
yeah, and this is a lovely cat. That's the power cat in the background. I think he's playing with his his toys. You know something? Just trying to teach you that in the interview, because we like to keep it. Ah, 100% Yeah, lose bike as please continue to.

spk_2:   9:17
Yes, So everything was So I always have done worked its body base because, you know, when I give talks, I I always discuss the fact that patients who do art about themselves are doing our because that's their That's their daily reality, and it's It's not like people taking selfies of themselves are 100 times a day. But if you're if you have an illness, then you spent so much energy being sick. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to be sick, so it makes sense that all that energy would somehow go into your artwork. So again, unlike, unlike Selfie people on Instagram, people are really thinking of a way to explain their medical situation to other people. And the easiest way for a visual artist to do it is with the painting or sculpture or whatever they're going through.

spk_1:   10:09
And so would you say that, um, as far as how art in your life hasn't been just a Is it a source of like an outlet and also a way to communicate so others can kind of guess, get a glimpse in an understanding of maybe what you've gone through,

spk_2:   10:26
You know, it's been different things at different times. So when I was in my thirties and forties, I was doing ah lot of self directed artwork about the bone pain I was having in the fatigue and the isolation I felt by being a sick person. And then in my early forties, when they came up with the treatment and all of a sudden the the fatigue was gone, the bone pain was gone, and I also had my first round of hip replacements. At that point, a lot of the things that had been the motivation for my artwork were changed radically and quickly, so I didn't have the fatigue. I didn't have the bone pain. I wasn't having to use a cane when I walked, and I really didn't know what the pain I went through, a period where I did, you know, more illustrative work, people in cafes or get a lot of cats because can't sell. You know, I wanted to paint, but I didn't really have a motivation. And I landed a meeting a woman at an art show one night who was in a wheelchair. And, ah, we had a long conversation after the the opening about doing work about illness and the fact that I wasn't doing that anymore, and she really got on my case and kept saying, You need to keep doing work about mobility issues. Just because you can walk now doesn't mean it's not part of your consciousness, and I went home and I started thinking, Well, how can I tell that story? Because I'm sort of done with my part of that story. And I thought about other artists and how they had portrayed this stuff. And I thought of theirs that really famous photo by Man Ray of the woman from the back. And it looks sort of like violin, like her back has made you a violin. And then I started thinking that I have a class I had taken where I learned to do fish prints, Japanese fish prints. And I thought, Well, if if I could print a fish, I could probably put in a human scar. So I called this woman up. Her name was Joy and asked if I could do a print of her scar, and she said that she was agreeable to that. So I went to her house. I did the print and it really looked beautiful. It was it was sort of the original one was purple, and I chose purple because it looked the same. Color to me is like the die they used on slides, medical slides, and I wanted to have a medical look and I did the print. You could clearly see the scar, and you could see where it bent on her back and where her back had broken. And then I showed him at an art show. I showed that print and one other person, a young woman who had died soon after of cancer. I showed both those prints at an art show, and people kept coming up to me and telling me about their scars. And they I always joke about this, but they were little it literally getting undressed in the gallery. People were undoing their shirts and pulling down pants and lifting up skirts and telling me about This is my car accident and this is this. And it took me this long to recuperate from this, and this happened and I was in rehab for this long. So it became really obvious that the scars were a really good way to get into people's stories and to start really learning about the human condition. And since then, you know, there's there are number of scar projects out there, so I'm not the only one. I just I do mind a little bit differently because their prince there's a lot of them that are just straight on photos of people with scars, Um, and they all they all sort of do the same thing. They they helped the people who have the scars feel like they're being supported. It, it helps them. Well, I'll talk about mine. In my case, I worked really hard to focus on the story of the survival afterward. So all these people who come to me and they're all volunteers, I usually never ask anybody to do it. They have had the biggest crisis in their life, whether it's cancer or car. Accidents are losing a limb or needing a new heart, whatever, whatever it is, that's their biggest challenge. And they have been made it through this challenge, and they want to celebrate it. So what I do is give them away the celebrated and then hanging on the wall. So my feeling is that everybody remembers the day they have an accident. They remember the day they got a new heart. They remembered the day they got hit by a car. But healing is so slow, there's not Anak chewable end date to healing and my project and some of these other projects. They supply an end date. They supply a date when people can go. I have made it through this. I'm making some artwork out of it. It's gonna be a beautiful memory as opposed to the memory of sitting in the hospital. It's something I can hang on the wall. I can have one. I can give the doctor one, you know. So it's it's it's sort of It's a celebration because healing can go on for months or years. But there's a certain point in almost everybody's healing where they go. Okay, I'm done. I'm ready that document this and move on with it. And that's where my project comes in.

spk_0:   15:38
You know, that is really phenomenal. You know, you just saying that healing is so slow and there's never an in date to it, you know, and I can see the interaction with some of my patients that I have to deal with at the hospital. That is true, and you never know a person is laying on a gurney for an extended period of time. His interaction with the piece of art is amazing, which you're doing is even really adding onto the secret sauce, you know, So I really appreciate the fact of your transformation or your journey to this to this scars project is really amazing. How do you think art has an impact on us? Emotionally and psychologically? I think you touched on it a little bit.

spk_2:   16:23
You know, I know how how the work I do does. Like I said, I think it gives people a Nen point where they can move on. What's always interesting is that the emotional impact it's different for everybody who sees it. I mean, I have a very close relationship with these people who, who I do scar prints of because I'm actually rolling ink on their bodies and I'm touching them and I'm pushing paper on them. But what's always interesting to me at the art shows where I exhibit these things is the reaction to the people who see them. They It's not like a regular art show. People will start in one corner of the gallery and walk around and read everybody's story and start talking about this happened to my sister. This happened to my mom that's happened to me, you know, it's each one and people will stand in front of the start crying because it might remind them of someone who had cancer or something that it happened to them.

spk_0:   17:20
Would you say it's a form of healing? When a person interacts with the piece of art like that?

spk_2:   17:25
I can't say how it works for them. I do think it is healing for the people who I print A so far as the people looking at it. I'd hate toe hit, even do a guess.

spk_1:   17:38
So some of maybe some of the people who have collected your work, even the scar series, how would you? Can you think of one or two people who have mention to you like maybe how it affected them? Did they identify with the work because they were drawn to the story but on the person or maybe because of a personal experience that they had gone through or just aesthetically, they just love what you were doing?

spk_2:   18:02
Okay, so the scar work is sort of different because I don't sell the scar work. Okay? I wanted something in my life that was not monetized by sales. You know, the entire artwork you can you can do amazing work or crappy work. And whenever you show it, the only thing people really care about is how do you would you sell? And I decided 20 years ago that I was going to take that monetary success Failure matrix out of this work so I don't sell it. Whenever somebody does a print, they get a copy of the print. Sometimes that's their payment. Occasionally someone last I want to give one to my doctor or my caregiver, and I'll do, Ah, a second print. But I don't sell these. I really wanted. I want to keep it as a collection, maybe one day museum. Oh, by the whole thing. Um, I make some money off if if a museum rents it or I'm asked to speak about it, but the actual collection in the artwork, I don't sell because they're not my stories. There's somebody else's stories. It's someone else's life activities, and I really just I wanted people just to look at it and take that

spk_0:   19:19
completely out of the equation.

spk_1:   19:21
So if the museums that have rented your work have, they also had some of the similar experiences as the shows where people began. Does it just kind of begin the conversation about Maybe there own personal experiences.

spk_2:   19:34
Yeah, I mean, they get notes, and I hear from the curator is how important it is to people. And I've done subsets. I've done a a set of people with breast cancer. I've done veterans. So, you know, that's what's nice about this collection. It's big enough now that I can sort of tweak it for the venue. But it definitely makes you know, again, I'm not in the mind of the people viewing it, but But the curator is always say that the reactions great they get, they get lots of good feedback.

spk_0:   20:05
Yeah, I believe it was one of, uh, the talks that you had out was watching a video. I think it was on Casey et with a young man. He was Iraqi war veteran and the impact that it was having on him I was just looking. I think you're hit was down as you were drawing in the video. But the young man was looking at you as Aziz. You were creating that peace. What type of impact do you think it was having on that

spk_2:   20:31
young man? Well, he's an amazing guy. I mean he is, he said in the video. He had had 43 operations at that point. He had been blind at one point. Now he's traveling all over the world, is a photographer, he super successful. He's got a really great daughter and wife. And so he and he and I have talked and he's come and given talks at some museums with me. You know, when I need to bring somebody because his experiences. So it's a really epic arc of his healing. I mean, it's over three continents. It took years. You know, I just think he's happy to be alive. I mean, he I think he looks at it. And, you know, for someone like this, and especially with the veterans I've noticed with the veterans, especially when they talk about their prints or they talk about their scars, Well, let me let me start again before I print each person. We sit and talk for about 1/2 hour. What is your scar mean to you? How did you get it? And when members of the public talk about their scars, it's very much in the first person. The way minus like I was sick. I had. When I talked about my illness, I was in the hospital. I did this. When the veterans talk about you, say to them, What is the scar mean to you? Inevitably, it's It reminds me of the guy. It was next to me who got blown up, but I survived. It reminds me of, you know, the fact that I didn't get to go back and be with the guys, you know? So it's It's really interesting that when you hear the stories, the scars for veterans is much more of a communal thing, documenting their whole stay end their love and support for their fellow troops. Where is when it's the public, you know, because we don't have those sort of responsibilities to other people. Life and death responsibilities. It's much more of a singular story.

spk_0:   22:30
Yeah, and you mentioned even what breast cancer survivors. You've even had an interaction with them. What has been their response to the project?

spk_2:   22:40
You know, this is so I did breast cancer show with a Greek photographer. We admit I had had a show in Athens and we tried to figure out how to work together, and we did a show here in L. A last October for breast cancer Awareness Week. And what was so interesting to me about that we we did seven. I had already done some breast cancer people. We did some new ones here and we had a guy with breast cancer. We had one woman who did complete double mastectomy where she is flat chested. We had a woman who left one breast in and removed the other one. We have one who had don't reconstruction, you know? And it was it was just amazing to see the way different people dealt with it and how they decided I'm gonna move on by keeping one breast or I'm good, not do the reconstruction, or I'm m going to do the reconstruction. And I'm a guy, and I want other men to know that men will get it. So the breast cancer people seemed at least the ones that I met and I met them through, like a breast cancer support group. They seem toe almost like the the vets. They've been through something. They wanted to share the responsibility, and they wanted to keep other people from having to deal with it. But they also wanted people to know. If you don't have a breast, that's fine. If you don't have either breast, that's fine to you know, there's there's a life after surgery.

spk_1:   24:02
And so you mentioned that a lot of your the subjects are volunteers. Do you? Are they like, after you start with one to someone else, give you a referral? Or how does that happen?

spk_2:   24:13
Yeah, Every time I do a show, I get emails. That's the interesting thing. I get emails from people constantly from all over the world thing. I'm gonna be in L. A. Can I do a print Or or just like I remember one day I got email from somebody in Africa who had been had their hand machetes off by the John Jui, you know, and he's like, I just want you to see this. I just want someone to see it. Wow, you know, and it's like I've never been good to be able to get to L. A. To have a print, but I wanted you to see my scar, you know, so, people, it's that thing. It's the recognition of This is the worst possible thing that could happen to me, but I survived it. You know,

spk_1:   24:55
that's really interesting. So it's kind of interesting to me that I think it was a little bit on the program that we watched on where it's like people. They want you to see them. They're scar to be acknowledged. I think may I hope I'm getting this right. I think you mentioned like one person meant that said that a lot of people don't like. They don't want to touch other scars. So now on Lee, Are you like,

spk_2:   25:20
Well, he So that was a guy who had said that nobody had touched the scar since he had it. So it's, you know, it

spk_1:   25:27
could be a

spk_2:   25:28
really personal thing. And, you know, if you go back to the Casey et Video, there's a guy who said at the beginning he wore long pants and long shirt. He didn't want anybody to see it, and now he's come to terms with it. He's accepted it, and I think me doing these prints or any of these other scar projects. They're all part of the acceptance. Yeah,

spk_0:   25:49
you know, I remember seeing flipping through some of the images and there was even one of an amputee. I believe it was Ah, young lady. She had her arm, ah, portion of her arm amputated and the colors that you put on it where just phenomenal. And she's looking at it like she shocked. Yeah. Uh what?

spk_1:   26:09
She's a comedian, first of all, so

spk_2:   26:10
she's she can mug for the camera, but she always talks in In her act, she talks about the fact that she didn't have an amputation. She was customized, and, um, she had its gets a good laugh out of that. Yeah, she was. She was also very lucky cause she was left handed, so she lost her right. And but she was left handed. So,

spk_0:   26:32
uh, so some of these colors that she using like the bright reds I noticed in the vivid, like purple colors and things like that. Would you mind touch it on that? How is it that you choose some of these colors?

spk_2:   26:45
I actually don't. It's very interactive. So when when the scar models get here, I have all the different backgrounds ready, and I have all the different inks ready, and they get to pick it. It's It's a very interactive thing. So they picked the colors, and it's all happens during that initial conversation where they tell me about what happened to them. And then I try to take things that they have told me during that conversation. And when I paint back into the scar, I try to add some of those things so that each print, even though it's a print of their scar it, I add a lot of things to make it more of, ah, really personal narrative for them

spk_0:   27:26
as so creative. You mentioned that a lot of the work that you're doing, you know as faras the acquisition process. You're not really selling the artwork. You're actually doing it as it's almost like you're providing its service.

spk_2:   27:40
Yeah, yeah, people always ask me, You know how much longer I'm going to do it and I'm going to keep doing it as long as I feel people needed to finish their healing process.

spk_0:   27:51
And when you think about your career as an artist, obviously, well, artists always have to eat, but I think it's just a really nice contribution that you're doing. That's a society of giving something back to the community, you know, it's really profound especially in this day and life. You know, we see have so many people selfish on their cell phones, constantly clicking Harding. Certain things, you know. So it's it's really awesome that share providing the service. You talked about some of the benefits of some of your collectors with these particular people. For instance, you you mentioned the war veteran, the comedian, some of the breast cancer survivors, some people who have actually been able Teoh have some of the prints, the impact that is having on them. What do you do? You notice? Are some of the things that they've received by living with your work or having this encounter with scars Project. What feeling or emotion are you trying to engage in your creative process?

spk_2:   28:47
I just I just paint I do. I do different types of work at different times. I like I said when I was younger, I did stuff that was very self directed about the fact that I was sick and then I do beautiful stuff, and now I do. You know, I kind of go back and forth. I do paintings that air very sensual or sexual, and then I'll do sort of a landscape of not a landscape like Here's the buildings, but I try to tell the story of where I'm m at that point. So like, I'll take a whole town and I'll try to draw the whole town and everything that's going on in the town. Not so much a realistic view. I just like to paint. So it's for me. It's really it's just a now outlet. I can, you know, turn on the radio. I can paint for a couple hours, I unwind, and and I'm very lucky because I'm at a point my life, where the scars have led to enough other things like you talk about the fact that I don't sell so the work and a lot of artists You don't have financial problems. I run a gallery at Cal State University of Southern California at the medical school, so I'm on salary there. I get paid to go give lectures. I curate shows for other galleries around the country, and I've I've developed this niche of curating work by artists, patients who do work about their illnesses, and I was very lucky that that has expanded to the Ted talk into other talks and getting to go meet people all over the world and talk about what I do. So I'm I'm extremely lucky that at 60 I am like this niche that, you know, even 10 years ago I was doing graphic design and hating it and trying to figure out how to get away from my computer all day long and just slowly by developing this project and the the genesis of it really is. It started with the scar project, and I had all these stories. And when I talk to people, I would hear Oh, I was in hospital and this went well and this didn't and over and over again, I would hear a lot of similar stories about doctors not being engaged doctors not relating to them like people. And that sort of brought me back to when I was a kid. Because when you have a very rare disease in your it Mount Sinai Hospital New York, which is a teaching hospital, you have 20 interns a day, come in and check you out because you're sort of like the freak. You know, nobody knew what this illness was at the time, and they would tap my stomach. They say, Oh, he's got a large spleen. He's anemic. What's going on? And then they'd leave. And you, you really feel like a piece of meat. And so my whole life, I thought, Well, how how could I maybe do something about that change that dynamic between the doctors and the patients so through, because I did the scar project and I had all these stories that other people had told me. I approached U. C L. A. About bringing artwork in there, and I wasn't really sure what I was going to do yet. It took a couple times and I kept calling up the medical school, and I kept getting the secretary who is from Jamaican. She had this great accent. You go. You know I can't do it. Honey, we don't need an artist here. Why don't you call the art school? And I would say no. I wanna bring art into the medical schools. Well, we don't do that here, but I kept calling. I called for about every two weeks for six months, and I decided I was gonna do one more time and I called and she was sick. She had the flu. And I got the assistant to the dean of medical humanities and he said, Oh, this is a great idea. Can you come in tomorrow and talk to the dean? So I did, and immediately we started working on a program to bring Artisan. So I did that at U C L A. For a couple of years. And then I got a call from USC, and they're sort of like we we want to poach you away from USC are from U C L. A. So there I have a better gallery space. We've expanded the program to tie directly to the core curriculum. So it's so I'm running this amazing program now because I have great support at USC, where I find artists whose work deals specifically with the illnesses that are being studied in that block of the core curriculum. So if they're studying bones of their studying Scalito, I'll find somebody with like me with a skeletal illness. Or if they're doing respiratory illness, I'll find someone with emphysema or cystic fibrosis, or if it's neurological at mass or polio or something. But the people have to do our about the illness and how the illness has affected them because I want the doctors to never walk into a kid's room again, the way they did with me, and just see the kid as something weird with an illness. And my hope is that if they see that an artist can create amazing artwork from an illness, maybe they realize the fact that patients have whole lives outside of their illness, their not just their illness, their creator of their emotional day, you know, And And if you can really see the art like you you were talking about with people looking at the art from the gurneys, I'm trying to do the opposite. So people always think I'm when I tell them first when I'm doing them. Oh, do you have in our therapy degree? And I'm like, No, no, I am the opposite. I'm teaching the doctors toe look at their patients, not the, you know, patients to look at the art. Yeah, so So that's That's how the single came about. So now we do four shows a year based on the curriculum. We have four lectures and we pair we show the artwork. We have the patient there, but we also have the head of that department, and the head of the department has to talk about the art and the patient has to talk about their care. And we go back and forth, does you know, And the doctors have to really look at the yard and go does this? Does this art explain the humanity of all my patients is explain humanity of any of my patients? Does it make me think more about my patients? And that's that's my challenge at the medical school Now to really get thes med students to think about the humanity of their patients while they're in there. And it's very difficult because, you know the first time they do a hip replacement or something, they're very excited about it. But, you know, if you do five a week, you sort of lose your you know, like I had my hip replaced. Ah, second time by somebody I've never seen him from that day on, but I always think about him, and I always point out you know that to the doctors, you might never think about your patients again, but you are seared in their memory. So do a good job

spk_1:   35:53
you know, that's fantastic. And it just shows how powerful what you're doing is affecting the especially the fact that you mentioned you were with U U C l s u C l a. And now you're with USC has have you? Are there like, one or two things or one or two students? Can you think of some feet? Bet that you've gotten from them or even from their instructors as to how it may have changed their perspective on their patients? Or have you noticed that read a reaction? Obviously it's successful. But the fact that been going on a long time and these colleges can see how valuable this is,

spk_2:   36:35
OK, so u c l A. I'm not sure they did. So what happened? There is the dean I've been working with left to, uh, go start at a new medical school in Texas, and the new dean didn't really seem toe see a value in it. So that's what was so interesting about this. Like I had a meeting with the dean at U C. L. A. The new dean and I, and he's like, Well, this is great, but I just don't know, and I came home and I called my girlfriend. I said, I guess this is over with. You know, I guess this part is over with. And by then I was already getting calls. I done the Ted talk and things and, like 20 minutes later, like you talk about synchronicity, I got a call from someone at you know, University of Southern California. Could week could we get together and talk about what you're doing? So I really I only had about 45 minutes between working at the ones glad and going to the other school. It was the craziest, you know, lining up of things, you know?

spk_0:   37:37
Yeah, it's really interesting because working with a number of vascular surgeons, interventional radiologists, anesthesiologists, nurses, text different people like that in the hospital, some of the ones that I find that have the best bedside manner and this isn't just to throw, you know, someone in a box. But I have noticed that those who have a love for the arts send toe, have more of a bedside manner and reading a statistic recent recently about how at some of the medical schools how they actually sending the doctors back to take art classes so that they'll have more of, ah, three dimensional viewpoint on their patients.

spk_2:   38:22
So, yeah, a lot of the medical schools send their students to museums for observation. All skills there. They're not really dealing with the humanity of it. They're dealing with the visual perception, getting the doctors to really look at their patients. You know, there's also classes where they will look at famous paintings into diagnosis of people from the paintings. And, you know, is this person skin blue? Is this Do they have, you know, high what pressure? There's a lot you can tell by looking at a painting that was done 300 years ago about some of the illnesses of, you know, they used to do these great paintings of people suffering and and dying and stuff. But what's happening lately is all the medical schools are in need of some medical humanities. It's part of the curriculum now, and I was just very lucky. I was there at the beginning and and I found this amazing person at USC who is was starting a programme about medical humanity. She also she runs a program called Healed Dr Pamela Shaft and she has writers and musicians come in with theirs. So I'm the artist in residence at this medical school. But there's also a musician and residents, and they have students story night, sort of like the moth where everybody comes in. And that's something where the doctors and the students come in, and they both tell their stories of dealing with patients. So, you know, there's also the aspect that it's a lot of stress being a doctor. So if you can get the doctors to paint or tell their story or something, and just like anybody else to let the pressure off of them, it's life, you know, literally. It's life and death every day and working at USC. Once those kids get out on the floor and second year, a lot of them are in County, and that is a rough place to be, you know. So so a lot of these exercises, also not not so much mine, but the writing exercises and the musician music stuff is really to help them keep from burnout.

spk_0:   40:30
Yeah, it's awesome, and we really appreciate many of our listeners who are in the medical field and it, you know, in no way we throw in a blanket over maybe medical professionals who may not really have appreciation for art. I know some very awesome doctors insurgents who I really don't have time. So it's really dove into art. But they're still also, you know, you know, really great at what they do,

spk_2:   40:59
you know. And I think there's there's a time and place for everything you know, like the guy who did my hips the last time. I would say he was totally on the spectrum. But if that's what you need to have the focus to be a good surgeon, that's one thing. But if you're gonna be a GP and you're gonna be on the floor, dealing with patients every day should be able to talk to them. And you should be able to look them in the eyes and make them feel like, even if even if you know they're going to die and you're at a hospice, you need, they need to know that you're there with them. And, you know, I remember the first day when I was hanging my first show at U. C. L. A. And there there, I actually used the hallway of the Learning resource building that at U. S. C. I have a whole gallery that's beautifully live, and it's a fantastic place. But anyway, so I'm hanging the show, and the kids have no idea who I am. And all the first year students were there and they were talking about what, ah, specialty they were going to do. And I just remember this one kid going. I'm gonna be an anesthesiologist cause I don't want to deal with anybody while they're awake. I don't want to talk to anybody, you know, and God bless him. If he can let him do that, then because if you really doesn't want to deal with people, but he likes medicine, he should. You know, As Trump says, he should self deport to somewhere where he's not gonna make someone feel awkward about their illness.

spk_1:   42:35
And that, And that's the one lovely thing that really appreciate about how art can be used as a tool like Basically, what you're saying is to help build empathy and others in addition to like you said the way certain classes were using old old paintings to be able to learn how to diagnose by looking And so it just all these different ways, including music, the way that you can help a person de stress. I just That's just beautiful thing Teoh kind of talk about. And that's one of the reasons why we're having this podcast twos. Because our it can be used in a way like that that I can't think of many other ways to, you know, have those types of conversations and help people to really see in that that manner to be ableto gain that empathy, have those conversations and at the same time, de stress and all that. So this really beautiful and really, really glad we got said interview today? No thanks.

spk_0:   43:33
Thank you. I know We talked briefly about some of the interviews that you're doing currently, Kid, you tell us, maybe as some of your latest projects as some things that you're working on currently.

spk_2:   43:43
Yeah. So the newest thing is, there's a website called Our Heart Speaks and they tell stories of people sort of mid life who had major life changes. And, um so they asked me to interview some of the patient artists I know. So So they have more general stories, but my interviews air specifically with patient artists, and we talk about how, exactly what we're doing here, how art has worked into their illness, how their illness has been a motivation for their art. And we show the art. We talk about different pieces we talk about, you know, had How's your cancer treatment? Gone has your crone's disease affecting what you do, you know. So that's that's one of the projects I'm also working doing syriza Patient Portrait. It's for a company that does a drug called a drug foreign illness called tardive dyskinesia, where people shake. It's sort of an interesting thing, so people who are bipolar or schizophrenic take a drug to knock down the symptoms. But then eventually they land up getting the shakes and and facial contortions, and this company came up with the drug. So, you know, it's one of the things we're. Yeah, there's always the good and bad on drug companies, but this this is a drug. I I'm really amazed by the difference it's made in people's lives. So they found me because I am somebody who works with patient narrative. And they asked, they actually originally called me and said you know somebody who could help us with this project, and I'm like, Yes, I can do that. So, again, different things leading from the scar project that I would have never thought I'd be doing a couple of years later. So for them, I've done these patient portrait's we did. They had me put a team together to do three murals about mental health in San Diego a while ago, we did these three stand up three sided murals during a medical convention. I'm constantly looking for artists on always looking for other universities toe AB, because when I put these shows together at USC, you know I've got the artists I've got the sign it. I would love to get them out to more and more schools because they're really compelling shows the and especially the talks. The artists you know, A lot of times you just talk to people. Why did you paint that? I don't know. It's it's very pretty. If you talk to a patient that does work about their illness and asked them about the painting, they will go on in fantastic detail about why they did that painting, and especially when they're dealing with medical students. They can talk about the art, but they can also talk about their medical treatment and exactly what's going on with them. So it's such an amazing learning opportunity. So I'd really like to expand this program. Two other schools,

spk_0:   46:39
Yeah. And what definitely put links to all of the fantastic projects that you're doing in there in the show's notes as well, you know, And you know, we just want to say its head. Thank you so much for your time. Yeah, here instead, Speak about some of the creations and also some of his work and how it's affected the medical community through the scars program. And some of the other programs that he talked about was so inspirational

spk_1:   47:07
it really was, especially since it has to do with patient care and the fact that patient care is very much improving. And all of the places that Ted has worked and has done these programs.

spk_0:   47:21
Yeah, you know, as a medical professional, I have so much respect for him for that

spk_1:   47:27
exactly. And that's one of the fascinating things about the people that we've been interviewing for. This podcast is just really amazing. Hearing how art can be used or people are using art as a tool in this way not to make it sound very perfunctory, because this is not, but it just I can't think of very many mediums, if any, that can really do what it does. And to see people really using it to the full is just really fascinating. And especially because it comes from such a sincere place.

spk_0:   48:00
And we want to thank you so much for your time today. And we hope that you enjoyed this interview as much as we did. And if you'd like to hang out with us a little bit more, please visit us at C. L s s dot studio. And you can finally is work at Leah Smithson. Art on instagram in mine at Just glaze Channing. Thank you so much for your time, guys.

spk_1:   48:21
And thank you for joining us at vessel Art is adorable.

spk_0:   48:54
Microphone check. 12 were wits head

spk_2:   48:58
in the world Famous moon huts. Awesome.