ABOUT HEALING ICONS®

Our History

For over thirteen years, Darr-Hope’s work has inspired thousands of cancer patients, their families, as well as hospital visitors at the South Carolina Cancer Center through this pioneering workshop, Healing Icons®.  The creative process is introduced as a means of confronting the psychosocial and spiritual turmoil of disease through self-expression and inner dialog. 

An Icon is simply a visual symbol representing a pivotal person or event in one’s life. Participants learn to create various types of Healing Icons® using different materials and methods. Written reflections combined with the two and three dimensional art created within these programs range from more traditional mediums such as drawings, paintings, and collage to innovative found object mixed media constructions – masks, altered books, shrines, shadow boxes…

In January of 2009, Palmetto Health made a strategic decision to close Psychosocial Oncology due to a change in philosophic focus towards the technological side of cancer care – robotic surgery, gamma knife, etc.  The gallery still remains as a testament to the therapeutic importance held within these programs.

Her passion to continue her work in the field of arts as healing led her to establish a non-profit, Healing Icons®, sometimes words are not enough, whose mission is to introduce the creative process as a means of understanding the emotional and spiritual turmoil of life-disrupting events through self-expression.  Healing Icons received its 501C3 February 18, 2009.