Art With Elders
at Laguna Honda Hospital
Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center is unique in the United States. Founded in 1866, it is a 780 person skilled nursing facility owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. Part of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, Laguna Honda
is home to a great diversity of people.
The hospital approached Eldergivers in the summer of 1997 to ask if we
would start Art With Elders on the Laguna Honda campus, located in the geographic
center of the city. Art With Elders (then Eldergivers) hired Bay Area artist Mark Campbell as Program Director and
Mark initially taught morning and afternoon classes for about 40 residents each Wednesday. The classes caught on quickly and
soon Mark was offering a second day for an additional 30 residents.
Since then, Mark has built the program into one that now offers residents
painting classes four days a week and includes special sessions for
monolingual Chinese-speakers and residents in the Alzheimer’s program. Mark
depends on an assistant, Patrick St. Clair, four other artist-Instructors, and a group
of faithful Laguna Honda volunteers to accommodate this expanded schedule.
Artists from the Laguna Honda program always comprise a significant portion of Eldergivers
annual Art With Elders exhibit and Mark and his crew do a great job of hosting
occasional exhibits at the hospital.
Laguna Honda has completed a $590 million building project that now provides
residents state-of-the-art healthcare in modern facilities. It includes studio space for the Art With Elders program. You can read more about it on the Laguna Honda website.
Learn more about two of the artists who have participated in the Art With Elders program at Laguna Honda:
Eye to Eye, April 2009
Robert Neil, artist and advocate for disabled people, dies at 73
San Francisco Chronicle, October 23, 2007
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