Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit institution that provides pediatric health care to more than 107,000 children each year in a setting designed just for their needs. 

We are honored to have been invited to share the beautiful Mayu Silk Art Experience with the patients and families at CHLA through their Mark Taper and Johnny Mercer Artists Program.  
If you have ever experienced the wonder of water-marbling, you can imagine the joy this beautiful, uplifting art form will bring to to these youngsters who have been burdened with so much!

This endeavor will require a coming-together of supporters and volunteers.  We are currently working on putting together a crowd-funding campaign, to help us get this effort off the ground. To launch a successful campaign, we need to create a promotional video and print materials, and prepare ourselves for the fulfillment of thank you rewards. Stay turned for more on that after the beginning of the new year... 

In the meantime...
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To better understand how, through art and music, the Artists Program works to heal the whole child, please consider this excerpt from the CHLA website:

• "At Children's Hospital Los Angeles, bandages, medicines and compassionate clinicians are not the only things relied upon for patients to heal. At the Mark Taper and Johnny Mercer Artists Program, we also use paint, clay, musical instruments and poems to heal the whole child. To do this, we rely on art, dance, drama, music and expressive arts therapies.
• By serving the whole child, instead of just their symptoms of illness or injury, we help our patients achieve better health outcomes. Through art and music, we help them alleviate anxiety, provide psychological support and offer creative outlets for self-expression.
• Unlike the traditional art and recreation programs found in many hospitals, our artists program is an innovative model that brings together local artists, performers, and teachers with registered and certified Expressive Arts Therapists to meet the diverse needs of our patient population. This multidisciplinary approach offers our patients something beyond diversionary arts and crafts projects. All the while, young participants in the program are nurturing a life-long appreciation for the arts."

​Children's Hospital LA is not reimbursed by insurance payers, therefore their program is 100 percent philanthropically funded. By helping to support Mayu Silk Art in our effort to introduce the healing power of the art of water marbling to young patients coping with illness and injury, you will help provide avenues of expression, choice, and control to children experiencing emotional pain and challenges.

WON'T YOU CONSIDER HELPING MAYU SILK ART GET THIS EFFORT OFF THE GROUND BY MAKING A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION TO OUR "PAY IT FORWARD" FUND?

Donate Online
If you are interested in donating directly to our effort to bring the Mayu Silk Art Experience to the artists program at CHLA, please click here and specify in the blank box labeled “Other” that you would like your donation to go directly to the “CHLA Artists Program."   For donations of $39 or more, we will be able to provide an in-kind donation form from CHLA.

Volunteer Opportunities
If you or your community organization is interested in volunteering to help bring the Mayu silk Art Experience to the Artists Program at CHLA, or any of our other community outreach programs, please email Star McCain at [email protected].  Not from the Los Angeles area? Don't despair - other volunteer opportunities may be available in your area, so feel free to inquire!

In this season of change, I am grateful for the ways we have been touched, healed, and transformed by this fascinating and magical art of water marbling.  It has changed the way I see the world. Although I have always felt an affinity with nature, I now see patterns and designs and colors I never noticed before, that bring to mind the swirls and twirls of paint on water. In fact, I often find myself transfixed as I watch an artist creating their one-of-a-kind design, lost in the beauty they are creating before my eyes. It is the same feeling I get when confronted with the glory of a sunset over the Pacific, or the soft curve of a baby's cheek, or the deep browns, greens, oranges and reds, yellows and grays of a lush forest floor in autumn. This breathtaking feeling is, in a word, AWE.