Shoshi Charmatz, mother of six, has been battling cancer for seven years. Shoshi attends Ezer Mizion’s visual arts therapy workshop and the artwork she has created is currently on display at Ezer Mizion’s visual arts workshop exhibit. Shoshi’s called her moving work of art “The Surviving Tree and Me.”
As part of her battle with the cancer that struck her body, Shoshi underwent treatments in New York. On her way to one of the treatments, she encountered the “Surviving Tree,” a lone tree located near the site of the Twin Towers that survived the 9/11 terrorist attack.
Ran Sahar, CEO of Maccabi visiting Ezer Mizion’s 2020 Art Exhibit
Ran Sahar is CEO of Maccabi, israel’s leading HMO, certainly a very busy man. But Mr. Sahar deemed it important to take time off from his crowded schedule to visit Ezer Mizion’s 2020 Art Exhibit. The annual exhibit features work produced by the participants of the Art Workshop, one of the many programs of Ezer Mizion’s Cancer Support Division.
Under the able leadership of Ms. Lidia Rozanski, Multidisciplinary Visual Artist, Certified Art Therapist, participants are guided to explore their inner feelings and express them through visual art. The process that the workshop participants undergo, alone and together through this project, is unique and powerful with a significant impact on their battle with cancer.
This project, an expanse for emotional processing, offers the artists an opportunity to open up and cope and to break the stifling secrecy, while engaging in the process of creating an artistic object and exhibiting it. It enables them to set out on an internal journey that is emotionally, creatively, and practically challenging. This journey demands of the participants to leave their comfort zone for the sake of the change that is generated by the new perspective they acquire in the course of the process.
When a person is sick, he can experience depression, anxiety, disappointment, frustration, and fear. He can lose his life routine and his ability to create. This workshop provides participants with a place of belonging and identification, a place where they can find change through which they can restore respect – both for themselves and for those around them. Via the process of artistic creation, we try to restore to participants their strength and their ability to do, to create, and to accomplish in the present and to plan for the future.
The artistic works created by participants in the workshop and displayed at this exhibit reveal a little bit of this process and open a window to the world of people fighting cancer. Ofir Amitay uses the following text to illustrate her creation.
Cancer patient depicts family support as she herself experiences helplessness
Together Hand in Hand
How supportive can hands be?
To a child whose life has only just begun..
How supportive and strengthening can a family be?
Apparently, more than I could ever have thought.
Like the foundations of a building, strong and steadfast in the face of a storm,
Like the net for the fallen trapeze artist, flexible, soft, holding on, not letting go.
Hands so powerful, endlessly strengthening.
Where would I have been without you, my dear family?
Probably not among the living.. and thus, this exhibition
Shoshi Charmatz, mother of six, has been battling cancer for seven years. Shoshi attends Ezer Mizion’s visual arts therapy workshop and the artwork she has created is currently on display at Ezer Mizion’s visual arts workshop exhibit. Shoshi’s called her moving work of art “The Surviving Tree and me.”
As part of her battle with the cancer that struck her body, Shoshi underwent treatments in New York. On her way to one of the treatments, she encountered the “Surviving Tree,” a lone tree located near the site of the Twin Towers that survived the 9/11 terrorist attack.
“My encounter with the tree was powerful,” she relates. “The tree survived the horrific attack on the city and was cleared from among the ruins. It underwent rehabilitation at a special farm, received infusions of rehabilitative substances, and eventually returned to life and to its original place. I really identified with what the tree had endured.
“At Ezer Mizion’s visual arts workshop, I created my tree, which portrays my journey to recovery with the treatments I am undergoing, far from my family but enveloped in love and filled with hope for growth and full recovery.
“Ezer Mizion and the workshop have a major part in my recovery process, an island of sanity and creation. They are my miracle.”
Oranit, Ezer Mizion’s Cancer patient Support Center, provides professional and volunteer support to patients and their families and envelops them with love.
