The art that started the non-profit came from a moment in 2005 when I had just received a phone call with the good news that a loved one had successfully come through his cancer surgery. I was sitting in the San Diego airport waiting to fly out for a work trip and my head filled with images of angels.
I had no drawing paper so I improvised using blank backsides of maps I had printed for my work trip to San Antonio, Texas. The first two ideas were an angel flying through the night sky and an angel surrounded by wavy lines.
That night I met up with friends and former cancer research co-workers for dinner and showed them my sketch ideas. One friend asked if I had ever heard of the poem, “What Cancer Cannot Do”. I had not but once I read the poem, I realized that the wavy lines were a perfect fit to have the poem lines flow around the angel.
Eventually, I painted both sketches and they became “Care of the Soul Angel” and “Colorful Cancer Angel”. My job was in cancer drug research which involved traveling to cancer clinics across the US and Canada to oversee new drug studies. I shared the art with the medical staff from doctors, nurses, study coordinators, and other healthcare staff who in turn shared it with patients.
The response was positive so I incorporated it as a 501(c)3 NGO non-profit in 2007 to provide the health and wellness inspirational art to patients, caregivers, and the medical community. The motto of the nonprofit is “Medicine Heals the Body, Art Heals the Soul”. It is meant to pay tribute that people will receive curative or palliative medicine for their bodies while the art is meant to support mental health in ways that traditional medicine cannot do.
By Laurel Latto
DonnaBellas Angels Artist & Founder
