Her own life's canvas nearly painted, Big Timber artist Jessica Zemsky is donating 25 original paintings and five prints of cheerful children to St. Vincent Healthcare to encourage families waiting for a sick child.
The Zemsky paintings, mostly of Montana children at play, will brighten the walls of St. Vincent's acute-care pediatric wing.
"When you spend your life making art, this is so wonderful for me," said Zemsky, who is 85. "I get chills."
The official announcement of the gift will be made today.
The wing, called St. Vincent Children's Healthcare, will treat sick children who otherwise would be sent to Salt Lake City, Denver or other medical centers.
"I've seen kids in hospitals," she said. "That's a dirty trick, but kids seem to cope better than the adults."
When sick children can stay closer to home and their families, they may heal better, she said. Her brightly colored portraits of children at play also seem to take adults back to their childhood, said Jack Hines, Zemsky's husband and a fellow artist.
"The waiting takes on a different feel when you wait for a child," said Dave Irion, executive director of the St. Vincent Healthcare Foundation. "I hope this art cheers up moms and dads and the extended family."
Irion spent about a year talking with the couple about the donation, which he calls a marriage between art and medicine.
The 25 original paintings and five high-quality prints are valued at $130,000 to $150,000.
Genuine gift
The pictures are a genuine gift, Zemsky said. Artists seeking to take a tax deduction must tell the IRS how many paintbrushes they used, what the canvas cost and how much of the $5 tube of oil paint and the $30 tube they used on the painting - which isn't worth it, she said.
"So you end up with a $14 deduction out of a $5,000 painting. When you donate art, you donate," she said.
She did, however, get a pledge from Irion to hang a bronze plaque at her exhibit.
Zemsky said she chose St. Vincent because the staff has helped her so much.
"I have a very personal connection to the hospital because all of my original parts are there," she said, laughing. "They've replaced everything you can, except my big nose and big mouth."
Lying in bed after one surgery, Zemsky said, she was surprised to hear an aide come in and greet her by first name because someone had taken the time to write "Jessica" above her bed.
"Isn't that wonderful? Such a little thing, but if you only knew what such a small thing meant when you're lying there recuperating," she said.
Copies of a book featuring her paintings, called "Kid Stuff," will be sold in the bookstore. And some paintings from her art exhibit will travel to other Montana cities, including to the hospital in Big Timber.
One concern of hospital officials was that Zemsky mostly painted girls and that her collection didn't have enough boys.
"I don't get boys," she said. "Their moms do not bring them or they don't want to come."
A painting of a boy holding a wooden airplane is part of Zemsky's donation. The boy is the son is Dr. Richard Lewallen, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at St. Vincent.
Worldwide friendships
Art has opened up their lives and allowed them to make friends with people from all corners of the world, she said.
"People say, 'I envy you,' " she said. "I envy myself."
Zemsky said she hopes her paintings will cheer up the ill children and their families and perhaps draw the attention of her late father, James Zemsky.
"If he's somewhere, I'd love for him to see this," she said. "I'm the last Zemsky."
Contact Jan Falstad at jfalstad@billingsgazette.com or 657-1306. |
