Cymatics & Art Therapy

Children living with Cancer: When Portland artist, Kyle Thomas, decided to create an art therapy project for the Pediatric Cancer Foundation’s “Camp Smile”, he contacted the Reid's team team. Kyle explained, "Camp Smile is a community-supported annual event based in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. My initial idea was to capture the children’s voice patterns and print hard copies in monochrome for each child to color. This would highlight that they are unique spirits and that even while battling an illness they have the ability to express themselves freely."

He discussed the concept with John Stuart Reid who was immediately enthusiastic about it. The discussion sparked in Kyle the idea to place the children in three groups and sing the words, “Love", “Expression", “Art". He arranged the words as a formula that the children could easily remember:

Love + Expression = Art

From right to left: Artist, Kyle Thomas with students, Jack Knudson and Evan Luzader. The dog is Machi (In service to Jack)

The three group songs were recorded and sent to Reid's laboratory for imaging. Reid's team imaged one word from each group; from one recording he imaged the word “Love”, from the next he imaged, “Expression” and from the third he imaged the word “Art”.

Kyle said, "When the kids saw the three Voice Mandalas the beauty of the patterns had a profound impact on them. They were truly in awe of what they created with their own voices. For several of the kids there was a very real connection to the sound art they created." Each child was given a copy of their group Voice Mandala to take home and paint for fun, creating a pretty keepsake of their experience. Some children decided to donate their art to the Foundation’s yearly Gala so it can be valued at auction to raise funds for next year’s Camp Smile.

For Michelle Zenie and Lisa Kappes of the Pediatric Cancer Foundation this annual event opens an opportunity for children and their families to step outside the daily life of therapies and treatments and instead, play and have fun. Michelle commented, "An environment is created that allows them to feel and be free, as children are meant to be.” Lisa added, "The bonds that are formed among the children are significant, and quite different to the way that unchallenged children respond to each other. This is what makes Camp Smile such a special place and event."