Story by Lawson Martin Photos provided by August's Artists.
August’s Artists was officially launched in 2022, but the nonprofit concept has been years in the making. Erica Olenski Johansen founded the nonprofit based on her own experience with her son, August.
August was 5 months old when he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer. He went through four rounds of chemotherapy following his initial diagnosis. August also had a 14-hour brain surgery the weekend doctors discovered his tumor. Erica says her family almost lost August several times. August underwent more chemotherapy and another surgery and suffered from a brainstem stroke that paralyzed his vocal cords.
While he was going through treatment at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, Erica and her son, August, as well as many other families who had children at the hospital, would use window crayons that the oncology nurses would provide in a box to decorate the window of the door to each of their rooms.
According to Erica, some oncology nurses would decorate the rooms to a particular theme. For example, at Christmastime, they would draw Christmas pictures on the windows for patients to enjoy.
“It lightened the heaviness and intensity of what a lot of the families were enduring,” Erica said.
One evening, Erica was creating artwork in her son’s room when she said the reality and intensity of August’s cancer diagnosis hit her.
“I was thinking rather sadly that if my son doesn’t make it, what sorts of things could I do in his honor to give back to the community that supported us through this?” she said.
It then occurred to Erica that crayons were an incredibly healing tool. She learned that many of the oncology nurses at the hospital were paying for the crayons patients were using with their own money because they saw how valuable creating artwork was for families.
Erica wanted to devise a way to fundraise to purchase crayons for other cancer patients at the hospital. But then she thought about it a step further and realized it wasn’t just the crayons themselves that were beneficial but also the activity of creating the artwork and what that means for families with young children who have cancer.
“As soon as a patient is discharged from the hospital, in many cases, their artwork gets wiped away because it’s part of the room sanitation process,” Erica said.
When a child stays in a room while they receive treatment, they create a sense of ownership in their room with their artwork, and after they leave, it’s gone.
“When you start to understand trauma and the impact of trauma on the psyche and its role in healing, what sort of things get stuck in your mind when you experience a traumatic event?” Erica said.
According to Erica, it can be difficult for parents of pediatric cancer patients to have their environment change drastically, such as going from daily hospital visits to returning home. Those pictures and artwork they created often stick out in their minds.
“One of the thoughts we had was what if we made that imagery that a lot of these families become accustomed to and use that to make a commemoration,” Erica said. “We can commemorate the artwork so those families can bring that home with them and act as a bridge between the hospital and when they go home and also as a way to honor the trauma and health milestones they achieve while in the hospital.”
Just like finalists of a marathon receive a medal, Erica thought it was appropriate for families to receive their own kind of medal or badge of achievement.
“There’s a symbol with that that you can keep with you to say, ‘I, in fact, did that. I went through that.’ And it’s a tool of validation that can be incredibly healing,” Erica said.
And that’s how the nonprofit, August’s Artists, was formed. The nonprofit not only allows patients to take their artwork home, but they also work to put a lot of the children’s artwork on posters for them to bring home. The children can hang the poster anywhere they want, such as on the door of their bedrooms.
“Or if it’s more cathartic and helpful for them to make a bonfire with the poster, that’s entirely up to them,” Erica said.
August’s Artists launched a pilot program with Children’s Medical Center last summer, where they work with the hospital’s child life department within the oncology unit to provide crayons and their complimentary commemorative artwork service to any patient or family member. The nonprofit is working to expand to other departments within the hospital.
“Children’s is going through a lot of growth, too, between their several campuses,” Erica said. “So I really would like to see it go facility-wide in the near term so that any patient’s family that’s coming there for any length of time has access to the crayons.”
Erica hopes August’s Artists is a platform for advocacy to raise the visibility of family-centered healing after traumatic events like a pediatric cancer diagnosis. She said the nonprofit embodies her own healing journey that she knows so many parents can relate to.
“Cancer, in particular, is horrible. And pediatric cancer is the worst kind of horrible. It really is unfair in every way you can imagine,” Erica said. “It doesn’t just shake you once, and you get past it. It stays with you forever. So for me, August’s Artists is an organization focused on giving people tools to help them heal.”
As for August, he will turn 5 years old in November and is in remission from cancer. He is a brain cancer and stroke survivor.
Anyone interested in donating to August’s Artists or learning more about the cause is encouraged to visit August’s Artists’ website.
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