{"id":52144,"date":"2011-12-13T08:37:41","date_gmt":"2011-12-13T13:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=52144"},"modified":"2011-12-15T08:44:46","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T13:44:46","slug":"cancer-patient-paints-mural-for-treatment-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/12\/cancer-patient-paints-mural-for-treatment-room\/","title":{"rendered":"Cancer Patient Paints Mural for Treatment Room"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Artist<\/a>
Artist Karen Pergande in front of the mural she painted for the treatment room in the Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center. (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health Center)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s a room in which breast cancer patient Karen Pergande<\/a> has spent an awful lot of time. The treatment or infusion room where she and other cancer patients receive their chemotherapy is big but only a few small pictures adorned the white walls. So Pergande, an accomplished artist, offered to paint a mural for the room as her way of saying \u201cthank you\u201d for the wonderful care she has received at the Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my way of saying thank you to everyone who has helped me so far,\u201d says Pergande. \u201cI just couldn\u2019t see myself walking away at the end of the day without doing something.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mural is made up of four panels, each panel is 2\u00bd feet by 4 feet. The landscape painting depicts a New England marsh with two great blue herons in the foreground. \u201cI love painting landscapes, especially with birds,\u201d says Pergande.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt depicts a peaceful place, comfortable place,\u201d says Sandra Watcke, nursing director for the Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center. \u201cSome people are here eight to 10 hours a day, and to have something beautiful and serene to look at while you\u2019re here is just wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pergande doesn\u2019t use photographs to paint from. She comes up with an idea and then visualizes and meditates on it until she\u2019s ready to paint. She chose the marsh scene because she wanted something colorful and serene so that patients and staff would find it soothing and healing. Once she formulated the idea in her head, she made sketches that were approved by the Health Center. Then it took her just five days \u2013 a very concentrated five days, according to Pergande \u2013 to finish the mural.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my passion \u2013 coming from my heart and out through my hands,\u201d says Pergande. \u201cIt\u2019s very gratifying, and the best part is people\u2019s response to my work and if they feel what I am trying to portray in my work.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can contact Pergande at pergandedesign@yahoo.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"(left<\/a>
(left to right) William Raveis-American Cancer Society Patient Navigator Pam Nixon, Karen Pergande, and Kerri Goodwin, clinical office assistant for the Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center. (Tina Encarnacion\/ UConn Health Center)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Treatment<\/a>
Treatment room nurses (left to right) Eva Carragher, Ashley Crane, Karen Kelleher, and Carm Natelli in the Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center with Karen Pergande (center), an artist and breast cancer patient, in front of the mural Pergande painted for the room. (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health Center)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

Follow\u00a0the UConn Health Center<\/a> on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a> and\u00a0YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s my way of giving back and saying thank you to all of the wonderful people who have cared for me here,\u201d says artist Karen Pergande.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":52146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[45],"class_list":["post-52144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 20:17:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52144"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52381,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52144\/revisions\/52381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/52146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52144"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=52144"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=52144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}