When it’s done right, art makes people feel something. Neighbor Mark Lombard thinks art is so important for happiness and well-being that he decided to bring it to his friends in hospice care.
A hospice volunteer for many years, Lombard set out to get images of art from museums and show them to people at the ends of their lives using digital photo albums. So far, his project, For Love and Art: Sharing with Seniors, has received entire collections from the Dallas Museum of Art, the Kimbell Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian to name a few.
His project is similar to the Google Art Project, and he intends to get museums around the world eventually. Lombard’s story highlights the adage “if you don’t ask, the answer is always no.”
For example, Lombard was in Washington, D.C., accompanying his partner on a business trip last year. He knew he wanted to get works from the Smithsonian for his art project, but he didn’t have any contacts there. So he walked up to the information desk and stated his case. The clerk pulled out a phone list, gave him the name and number of the right person to ask, and a few weeks later, he got a meeting with the Smithsonian.
Now hundreds of hospice patients have the world’s largest museum at their fingertips.
Check out Turk’s video of Lombard and Miss Billie, the hospice patient who inspired the project:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeSUdDja6NY[/youtube]
