New gallery at El Camino Hospital captures patients' inspirations

By Kathleen Acuff, Town Crier Staff Writer

Harriet Lou and Jan Becker welcome each other to the opening of an exhibit of artwork from El Camino Hospital’s Creative Expressions class.

A permanent gallery has opened in a place of impermanence. Paintings by cancer patients now hang in the library of El Camino Hospital. The exhibit that opened last week grew out of the hospital’s Healing Arts Program. The trees and flowers captured in the paintings are rooted in patients’ lives.

The woman who brought these works into the light is local artist Tehila Eisenstat, who teaches a free class called Creative Expressions every Tuesday at the hospital. Her class has grown from two students to about 20 in two years.

Eisenstat began teaching cancer patients “just because I wanted to,” she said last week. “I strongly believe in helping people. You are the wealthiest person on earth when you touch people’s lives. I shall continue doing this for as long as I can.”

The artist was moved by her students’ reactions to seeing their paintings on display.

“There was so much energy at the opening. I could see how happy they all were. They wept tears of joy and accomplishment. They love what they’re doing,” she said.

Eisenstat said the Creative Expressions class is not art therapy.

“But painting, getting together to paint, brings you to a therapeutic point,” she said. “All the students are cancer survivors, cancer patients, from young to old. They are like one big family, they are so connected with each other and so supportive of each other. I love each one of them.”

Of the paintings on exhibit, she said, “Some trees are deeply rooted, some blossom, some branches fall off - I don’t have to explain.”

The Israeli-born colorist works mainly in oil and acrylic. She has training in architecture and design, but her chief inspiration is impressionism. She has studied art in Israel, France and San Francisco. The artist is married to Saul Eisenstat, a surgeon at El Camino Hospital, who “has nothing to do with my program,” she said, laughing.

“I’m on my own. If the hospital hadn’t given me a room, I would have done it in my home,” she added.

Eisenstat and her husband have lived in Los Altos for 34 years. They also have a home in Carmel, where Tehila Eisenstat also teaches art.

Although the gallery is permanent, the exhibits will rotate. Eisenstat plans to hang new paintings in about two months. She teaches a separate class for hospital personnel. Among those students she said, are the head of clinical care, the head of ICU and nurses.

Eisenstat plans to exhibit their paintings someday.

For more information about the Creative Expressions art program, call (800) 216-5556 or visit www.elcaminohospital.org/creativeexpressions.

For more information about Tehila Eisenstat, visit www.tehila-art.com.