Meet the Art for Recovery Team

Art for Recovery Program Director

I believe ART is the universal language of the soul. It is my craft, as well my passion and privilege to contribute what I can to the UCSF Art for Recovery program. As a lifelong student of the arts and psychology, the greatest education that I have ever received is from my patients. In Art for Recovery, our patients are our teachers.

As a child of an artist and an artisan, I literally grew up in between an art studio and a workshop. My training has given me the privilege of working in the mural industry with some of the world’s best muralists, however, the true meaning and value of art was never made clearer to me than the first day I sat with cancer patients receiving infusions. To bear witness to the lives and stories of people facing illness and mortality was humbling in the best sense. To offer my language of art, to give voice to their stories, is an honor.

My mission at Art for Recovery is to create a safe and welcoming space for patients’ voices to be heard, without judgment, in the company of others who have been in their shoes. My goal is to curate these stories throughout the UCSF Medical Center and beyond, giving voice to the voiceless, community to the isolated, and a measure of solace to our patients.

"Life is 70% fantasy and 30% reality, the arts are that 70% that helps us survive the 30%." -- AFR patient

Healing Harpist

“Music can touch and comfort the deep part of the self.”

Patrice Haan started playing harp with Art for Recovery 20 years ago, through her non-profit agency, Healing Muses. She believes the harp is an invitation to self-care and wellness, creating a safe place to rest in wordless music, allowing room for emotions and healing. 

Her partnership with Art for Recovery has included projects with the Bone Marrow transplant wards and the Hem-Oncology Clinic at Parnassus, supporting cancer patients through Symptom Management Services clinics at Mt. Zion and Mission Bay, and playing harp during the Meri Center’s biannual Days of Remembering. 

In recent years, she has shared her dedication to poetry during online workshops as a door to entering and centering meditation. 

Musician Song Writer

Originally from Montana, Jim first performed in the San Francisco Bay Area with the Pickle Family Circus as an apprentice clown and roustabout, appearing in clown and club juggling routines. Jim has since presented his own clown show at fairs and festivals up and down the west coast from Lompoc to Puyallup. Outside the ring, Jim has pursued a variety of interests: jazz piano, accordion, movement and flamenco dance.

In the tradition of the minstrels and troubadours of old, Jim has been sharing his love of music and the performing arts with healthcare communities throughout Northern California, including the Art for Recovery program, for many years. Just as a vase of flowers can transform a room through beauty, a ‘bouquet’ of music and stories can create community, balancing the fear and stress of illness with wholeness.

Healing Harpist

Mary Watson was attracted to learning how to play the harp about 12 years ago when a friend told her that playing harp helped her heal a chronic physical condition of many years. Mary decided to complete CPMC’s Healing Harp Certificate when she did a tour of a hospital with the woman running the program. One of the nurses saw this woman and her harp and said, “Now I can breathe again.”

She played for patients there at CPMC for a year and then spent two years playing at S. F. General, before she started at UCSF Art for Recovery in 2015. She loves playing for patients, relatives, friends and staff. She finds each situation to be so very unique - poignant, uplifting, sad, inspiring. She is learning so much from these people and treasures this work.

Creative Writer

Ned Buskirk has worked with UCSF's Art for Recovery creative writing with cancer patients since 2018. His work is creatively engaging with healing through writing - at the hospital bedside, creative writing with cancer patients, and in groups, facilitating Healing with Writing Workshops. The Founder and CEO of his own nonprofit, with a MA in English Literature, he has over 5 years experience working with hospice patients, an active hospice program sending musicians to patients' bedsides, monthly sell-out live events facilitating creatively conscious mortality space for community, and enlivening open mics for men inside the prison system. He believes that our community deserves ongoing and consistent opportunities to creatively and vulnerably show up for one another. To face the hardest parts of being mortal, we need to come together, supporting and inspiring one another to heal, grow and claim our own uniquely individual creative aliveness.

Creative Lead

"Sometimes you're the one in the room and it doesn't matter what your strengths or your limitations are, you just have to show up and allow what wants to happen to happen."

Elias, who goes by Eli, has been involved in the cancer non-profit space for over a decade. Eli is an abstract artist and cartoonist that has been with Art for Recovery since 2021. He is an active facilitator for several workshops around the Bay Area including the inpatient drop-in group at Parnassus and the Mount Zion Open Art Studio. Eli finds every experience with patients unique and inspiring - He loves bringing his humorous side and excitement for art to every interaction. He also is always taking on new opportunities and believes that every person is capable of using art as a means of healing and expression. Eli is as well a skilled grief group facilitator. He can be seen curating personal displays of his art in galleries around the city. 

Former Director, Art for Recovery 1988-2020

As the director of UCSF Art for Recovery since its inception in 1988, my life changed when I began working with HIV patients at the beside at Mount Zion, where the expressive arts gave a voice to those who had no more words. As Director of Art for Recovery’s award-winning program, I was responsible for raising funds through grants, solicited and unsolicited donations, and presenting programming that would continue to serve our patients who are looking for community, and a safe place to be vulnerable.

I have created and facilitated numerous art and healing programs including: The Breast Cancer Quilts Project, Firefly Project, Employee Well-Being Project, Healing Garden Music Series, the Open Art Studio for anyone dealing with cancer, writing and expressive art workshops on the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, and Hematology/Oncology Dept with adults living with cancer.  In addition, and in collaboration with the UCSF Department of Medical Humanities, I have published: The Firefly Project: Conversations about what it means to be alive, Bedside Manners: What to say and what not to say when someone is ill, The Portable Artist Workbook and The Portable Artist Coloring Book, the Art for Recovery Book of Prompts, and Prompts for Reflection, and The Postcard Quote Project. In the spring of 2018, the Patient as Teacher Anthology was published.  Along with the Art for Recovery staff we have painted eight murals (six on the ceilings of the Ultrasound suites) throughout UCSF. Collaborating with the UCSF architects the UCSF Mount Zion Meditation Room, the Jeffrey Pearl Meditation Room was created.   I am currently serving on the Mission Bay Core Committee for Arts and Interiors for new buildings and clinics associated with UCSF Health and continuing to create healing environments for our patients.   In 2020, I was nominated to the board of the National Organization for Arts in Health, and currently, co-leading NOAH’s ARC, a national initiative to alleviate burnout and stress in clinicians through the expressive arts.  My background is in fine arts, psychology and art history, and my career began doing research in 18th and 19th Century American Painting and Sculpture, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.  I am a painter, illustrator, and work in mixed media.  

I returned to the UCSF Cancer Center in June 2020, to work on special projects, part-time,  with adults living with cancer and creating healing environments throughout UCSF Health.  This works continues to be life-changing