A local artist is contributing her talent in an effort to help patients and their families who are dealing with kidney disease in the province of Alberta.
March is kidney health month in Canada and Parksville artist Monk is assisting the renal units at some hospitals in Alberta to create a unique painting.
Hospital patients in renal care, doctors, nurses and individuals who have lost loved ones to kidney disease will join MONK and paint a three foot by four foot canvas at some hospitals around the province.
MONK said the project got underway this week and will take a couple of years to complete. She said thousands of people will take part in the collaboration and hopefully for some it will be therapeutic.
“It will provide an outlet for staff who deal with grief. The painting will be a celebration of what they do and memorialize loved ones,” MONK said from her studio in Edmonton.
MONK said she will guide people as they add their paint strokes to a canvas with Mount Edith Cavell in the background and the painting will travel to various renal units in Alberta.
She said there is significance in choosing the mountain located in Jasper National Park because it was named in 1916 for the English nurse and spy executed by the Germans during the First World War for having helped allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium to the Netherlands, in violation of military law.
MONK has been doing commemorative art works involving group participation painting for many years.
When on Vancouver Island the artist frequently paints in public outside her home studio on Rathtrevor Beach, at the Craig Street Tuesday evening market in Parksville and in the Monk Art Gallery and Studio in Parksville.
People often seek MONK out because she encourages young and old to paint with her and add their signatures to her works of art.
