Art Cart, helping people with Parkinson’s, stopping in Attleboro

BY KAYLA CANNE SUN CHRONICLE STAFF, September 7, 2016

The Art Cart welcomes caregivers or a family member to attend the workshops alongside the Parkinson’s patient as a way to build positive relationships and a community atmosphere. This painting was completed by a daughter of a patient with Parkinson’s. (Submitted photo)

ATTLEBORO - In just one year, the Art Cart has traveled to more than 10 cities across three states, helping almost 100 people with Parkinson’s disease and other debilitating conditions learn how to channel their sometimes frustrating and discouraging symptoms into artful masterpieces.

And soon, it’s coming to Attleboro.

The Art Cart was formed simply out of a desire to “spread smiles,” founder Saba Shahid said.

Shahid graduated from Quinnipiac University with a master’s in biomedical sciences and spent several years working as a research associate and medical interpreter. There, she learned that a common but widely unknown symptom of many diseases was “the inability to smile.”

James Hurley Bruno and his wife are pictured at the American Parkinson’s Disease Association Massachusetts Chapter’s Optimism Walk, where The Art Cart had an interactive creativity station. They are holding paintings that Bruno completed. Bruno was also a featured artist at the Art Cart’s Smile Through Art Exhibition in Canton in June.

This, combined with the depression and anxiety that can also accompany these illnesses, led Shahid to found The Art Cart.

Melding her medical background with a love of art, Shahid developed a series of workshops with symptoms of Parkinson’s and other illnesses in mind.

The hope was that engaging art classes would encourage participants and give them an outlet to escape their condition, if only for a few hours, while also exercising the most afflicted parts of their body.

In her Parkinson’s workshops, painting allows participants to relearn simple fine muscle movements by holding and manipulating a paintbrush. Shahid encourages participants not to become frustrated or embarrassed by the hand tremors that can sometimes accompany Parkinson’s, but instead embrace them and use them to add texture and life to their work.

Because of this, participants find comfort and ease in her workshops — leaving with a sense of pride and a piece of work all their own.

“We find that a lot of Parkinson’s patients who experience tremors become embarrassed or try to hide it, but here we allow them to find a safe place where those symptoms are OK,” Shahid said. “So the one thing they might have seen negatively, they now see positively — that was the one thing that helped them make their masterpiece.”

A traveling organization, The Art Cart hosts monthly consecutive workshops in different New England cities for a few months at a time before hopping off to the next destination.

The first of five Attleboro Parkinson’s workshops will be held from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Sept. 10 at the Attleboro Public Library, and will continue into January. The workshops are designed to be consecutive sessions, so participants are encouraged to attend as many as they can.

All workshops are free to participants and their caregivers, but donations are welcome. To reserve a spot, call 800-651-8466 or email information@apdama.org.

For more information visit smilethroughart.com.

KAYLA CANNE can be reached at 508-236-0336, at kcanne@thesunchronicle.com and on Twitter @SCNortonMA.

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