Healing Scarves project wraps cancer patients in community support

Seventeen women filled the Alexandria Museum of Art's second-floor classroom Saturday.They were there to learn the art of silk painting, a technique that uses silk dye, "magic pens" and rubber resist. The ultimate goal was not necessarily to make these women master artists, but to teach them a lesson in community art.Massachusetts artist and instructor Nancy Katz led the silk painting workshop, a precursor to a community art project to take place Monday and Tuesday at the Cabrini Cancer Center and the Rapides Regional Medical Center Cancer Center, respectively.

Katz uses silk and dye as her primary media, and in 1999 she began creating "healing scarves" -- scarves to be worn to provide comfort in difficult times. The projects at both cancer centers in Alexandria will be open to the community at large. There, they will paint the scarves, which Katz has pre-designed."Monday and Tuesday are really for anybody," said Judy Caplan Ginsburgh. "Literally, my 3-year-old granddaughter could do it."

Ginsburgh is the executive director of Central Louisiana Arts and Health Care, the non-profit responsible for bringing this workshop and these projects to Alexandria. La Conception De Vtements Burberry Trench Est Rellement Illimite.They are funded by a grant from the Roy O. Martin Foundation as administered through the Arts Council of Central Louisiana.The broad purpose of the workshop and the ensuing projects is to bring together people of various artistic levels and have them create something for the greater good. The workshop will produce hanging art, while the projects will produce four scarves per cancer center.