Sharon Hyson pores over her bright red rain sticks, feathered and painted treasure boxes, and colorful, homemade hand puppets.
She picks up a puppet that has a messy mop of yellow hair. Hyson’s eyes light up with a sparkle that wasn’t there before.
“My name is Sally,” she says in a slightly high-pitched voice, animating the puppet. “Will you be my friend?”
Hyson, a West Ridge, Ill., resident, is an art therapist and educator. She creates programs and presents them around Evanston, visiting everywhere from nursing homes to hospitals to summer camps.
Hyson uses the process of making art to distract people from their pain and to enrich the lives of the physically disabled. She frequently works with patients suffering from severe cognitive impairments and often teaches ways to make art projects from common materials.
“I really worked on making the arts accessible to everyone,” she said.
Hyson modifies some of her projects so that everyone can participate. Her finger puppets, crafted from toilet paper rolls, sometimes have foam stuffed inside them so the puppets rest snugly on the fingers, allowing even those with limited use of their hands to manipulate them.
After the patients finish their projects, they gather together in a circle and share the personal significance of each work.
“During the sharing time, people really find support within each other in the group,” Hyson said. “It’s much easier to connect through art and nonverbally. … They could bond through the safe and secure environment of art.”
Skokie resident Delores Marchant, who participated in Hyson’s program at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, 345 E. Superior St., and worked with her on a one-on-one basis for six months afterward, praised Hyson’s work and said it helped minimize her pain. Marchant made many projects with Hyson, including a treasure box she painted green and turquoise and decorated with feathers. She now uses her “dream box” as a storage place for her keys.
“When I worked with Sharon in the art therapy program, I was honestly unaware of the pain,” said Marchant, who suffers from arthritis. “When you get yourself involved, your mind goes off the pain and onto the thing you’re working on, and you completely forget the pain.”
Deneen Hesser, who worked with Hyson as the director of patient services at the American Brain Tumor Association in Winnetka, Ill., for the past four summers, said she sees the benefits her clients receive from art therapy. She especially noted Hyson’s adaptability and awareness of the different needs of varying groups.
“I think Sharon’s sensitivity in being aware of the needs of the people around her is the thing that has struck me the most,” Hesser said. “She’s really a catalyst for bringing people together and helping them share their experiences.”
Hyson said she knew in high school she wanted to pursue art and discovered her passion for working with mentally disabled people while in college at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the late ’70s and early ’80s. She holds degrees in art therapy and art education.
Her former mentor at the school, Don Seiden, said he still remembers Hyson.
“Oh my God, she was an amazing woman,” said Seiden, now a professor emeritus at the school. “I was always impressed with her own personal art … it was so unique and different.”
Seiden said Hyson was “definitely in the upper 5 percent” of all his past students, though her many qualities are difficult to compare.
“She’s so unique in the way she puts it all together: … her intelligence, her creativity, her empathy for all the people and her energy,” he said. “She’s like a one woman art therapy army.”
These days Hyson juggles her work with clients, group programs and planning for a summer festival. She will be presenting a program on the creative power of art at Friends of Evanston, 1010 Greenleaf St., March 7 at 11:30 a.m.
“The environments change, but I can’t take art from what I do,” Hyson said. “My art to me is really a lifestyle. I don’t separate my work from my art from my life — they all flow together.”
