Art Therapy

In AS, when we were watching the movie The Cats of Mirikitani, it was interesting to me that Jimmy Mirikitani, the main character, repeatedly drew pictures of the Tule Lake internment camp where he spent 3.5 years of his life. Why would he want to paint a memory that was so painful for him, over and over and over again?

Later I realized, it was his form of therapy. A few years ago in Wilmette there was a walk called the Kirathon. It was in dedication of Kira Arney, who would be a senior this year, who died of a malignant brain tumor. It raised funds for art therapy at Children's Memorial Hospital. (Read more about it here). Art therapy for cancer patients has been proven to help the quality of life and reduce the pain and anxiety in cancer patients. In this article, a doctor is quoted as saying, "Art therapy provides a distraction that allows patients to focus on something positive instead of their health for a time, and it also gives patients something they can control." Now I don't mean to say that Jimmy Mirikitani is like a cancer patient or vice versa but his art may act in the same way for him as it does to a cancer patients. Drawing the camps also might relieve his pain because he knows that he survived it and that his life has moved on.