faces

The Power of Painting

Local artist turned tragedy into opportunity

Pickerington resident Jenene Warmbier took a few art classes during her undergraduate years at the University of Toledo simply as a hobby. Little did she know, however, she would pick the brush back up as a form of therapy – for herself, for her daughter and for children in treatment for cancer all over the world.

In the 1970s at the age of 2, Warmbier’s daughter Michelle was treated at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. As a way to process this difficult time in their lives, Warmbier pulled out a pencil and a pad of paper and sketched Michelle as she underwent cancer treatment.

She gave each sketch to Michelle, who colored them in with her box of crayons. If a procedure scared Michelle, she scribbled over the sketch in black.

“It was as much therapeutic for her as it was for me,” Warmbier says.

Warmbier believes that the sketches gave Michelle a sense of control over her medical procedures.

Jenene Warmbier

Allison Kingsley, a member of the Family as Faculty program at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, with her son Brett. As a toddler, she could voice her feelings with art.

The sketches also proved to be informative for Warmbier’s 4-year-old son Scott, who was with a babysitter during most of Michelle’s procedures. The sketches helped Scott understand what his sister was going through at the hospital day in and day out.

As Warmbier’s talent grew, so did her reach. She began to use pastels to draw other children in the cancer center before they lost their hair. She hoped to give the parents something to smile at during a dark time. In 1977, her book, Hospital

Days, Treatment Ways was published by the National Cancer Institute and

The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center in collaboration with Nationwide Children’s

Hospital. Her coloring book marked a new era in patient education. “Before the internet, we could learn nothing about what was going on with our children other than what the doctor told us,” she says, “and by the time we got back to the room, we’d forgotten everything they said.”

Michelle’s Legacy

After seeing how much the sketches helped her daughter, Warmbier decided to publish a coloring book for children with cancer. While Michelle passed away in 1976, Warmbier knew that many children could still benefit from art in the way Michelle had during treatments.

The book illustrates different parts of treatment cancer patients might experience such as isolation, breakfast in bed and radiation therapy. A nurse created captions for each image to educate parents and patients.

Warmbier simply wanted her coloring book to help other children feel in control of their treatment as it had for Michelle. She never dreamed it would be helping families all over the world.

“Since its publication, somebody told me that they saw a copy of the book in Spanish at a conference they went to in Australia,” she says.

Watercolor Workshops

After taking a break from art to focus on her career in marketing with a patient education program, Warmbier picked the paint brush back up during her retirement.

She retired with her sister Katherine Guthrie’s advice in mind.

“Don’t retire until you can retire to something rather than from something,” Warmbier says.

Warmbier started attending a watercolor workshop at the Pickerington Senior Center, where she quickly fell back into her artistic ways.

She soon began to teach watercolor painting as well as other artistic mediums at both Amber Park Assisted Living and Abbington Assisted Living. This year, she also started teaching watercolor at the Pickerington Senior Center.

In her classes, harkening back to the days in the hospital with Michelle, Warmbier begins by providing a sketched outline for the students to paint on. Despite starting with the same bases, each student creates a unique piece. The creations are always a surprise and a delight, Warmbier says.

The classes aren’t just about creating art, though.

“We use it as a time to talk and reminisce and tell jokes,” she says. “It’s therapeutic, both for me and for the people that go to the class. We try to keep it fun.”

Warmbier says she particularly loves seeing the shock and pride on older adults’ faces when they finish a piece, since many come into the class with little to no artistic background.

Benefit in Bloom

After both teaching and participating in multiple watercolor classes, Warmbier racked up a large collection of paintings. While she had hosted a few mini exhibitions in restaurants, she hadn’t yet hosted a full show. Most of the time, she gave her art away as gifts.

However, when her sister Guthrie passed away after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease in 2018, Warmbier decided to host a fundraiser. One year later, she held an art show to benefit the Parkinson’s Foundation as well as the Ronald McDonald House.

The show was a success, and now Warmbier is planning her next show, this time focused on mothers and children of all different backgrounds, ethnicities and nationalities.

The idea for this new series is inspired by another mother of a terminally ill child. The mother reminded Warmbier of Michelle’s battle with cancer and the unique mother-daughter relationship they shared.

“It’s amazing to me how something that potentially is (as) tragic and as heartbreaking as a child’s illness can lead to all kinds of activities that benefit other families,” she says. “The opposite of the coin of tragedy is opportunity. You just have to look around and use the talents that God gave you.”

Structural Support Group

While her daughter was receiving treatment, Warmbier helped found a parent support group called A-Okay Services. After noticing the distances some of the parents had to travel for their children’s care, Warmbier contacted Ronald McDonald House Charities.

“In going through the experience of staying in the hospital all night with your child, I really felt for the parents that had to travel a distance and come for treatment with no place to stay,” she says.

The group raised enough money to buy an old apartment building across the street from the hospital. Through volunteer labor and donated materials, the group renovated the apartment building into a Ronald McDonald House.

“We were able to open the first one in Columbus in 1982,” she says. “So, it was really a very wonderful thing.”

The Columbus Ronald McDonald House was the first to open in the state, preceding the Cincinnati location by only a few months, and is now the largest facility of its kind in the world.

Sarah Grace Smith is an editorial assistant. Feedback welcome at feedback@ cityscenemediagroup.com.