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Art Connections in Healthcare

Art Connections in Healthcare brings the arts into local medical facilities to provide patients the opportunity for creative expression, thereby enhancing their quality of life. Museum staff make regularly scheduled visits to partner facilities to view, discuss and create art with residents. In turn, patients visit the museum for tours, art lessons, garden visits and musical and theatrical performances.

St. Catherine Labouré Manor

The program at St. Catherine's, a long-term care facility, focuses on the needs of the center's elderly residents. Art projects are created in meeting areas of the facility, giving residents the opportunity to socialize; in-room visits are provided for residents unable to leave their rooms. To provide music at St. Catherine's, the Museum collaborates with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and the Body and Soul program founded by James Jenkins.

A team of professional artists has brought the Cummer Gardens and surrounding Riverside neighborhood to the Alzheimer's unit at St. Catherine's via hallway murals. Vistas of flowers, fountains and trees beautify surroundings for residents and their families.

Mayo Clinic Humanities in Medicine Program

In a partnership with the Mayo Clinic at St. Luke's Hospital, Cummer museum educators provided one-on-one bedside art-making activities for patients to engage patients in creative thought and provide a temporary respite from illness or pain.

Northeast Florida State Hospital

Museum educators have helped design an art and clay studio at the hospital, train staff and provide workshops for patients with mental disabilities. Patients also visit the museum for guided tours of the permanent collection and gardens.

Download a lesson plan

"Sharing Memories with Watercolor Painting" (24k)

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The Cummer is fully wheelchair accessible throughout the museum and gardens. We have wheelchairs available for visitors at the front desk.