For Patients & Families | Art Specialists

Our Art Specialists provide fine and expressive art encounters at patients’ bedsides and in clinical settings. Since January 2011, Boston Children’s has employed a team who offer creative writing, video making, painting, cartooning, arts history, and visual arts activities.

Together, they provide artistic opportunities on all inpatient units, all intensive care units, dialysis, the outpatient infusion center, primary care, the ninth-floor family resource room, the inpatient psychiatry unit, at Boston Children’s at Martha Eliot, and at Boston Children’s Waltham.

Projects include creative writing and book publishing, poetry, video art, origami, digital art, cartoon art, collage and mixed media art, sculpture, and jewelry making.

Tim Estiloz, Art Specialist (Waltham)

Tim has an associate's degree in illustration and graphic design from the Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh. His illustrations and cartoon work have been published in the Boston Phoenix, Nashua Telegraph, El Planeta, Bay State Banner, NOW Comics, and numerous other publications, as well as by a variety of greeting card and comic book companies. He is a published children’s book illustrator, where his skill with traditional hand-rendered art has been highlighted. Tim is also very active in the comic book art community, often exhibiting and creating his artwork at comic book conventions throughout New England.

• Email address: Timothy.Estiloz@childrens.harvard.edu

Ginny Lewis, Senior Art Specialist (Main Campus)

Ginny is a writer and an educator. She developed and facilitates the hospital's Open Art Studio program, and specifically focuses on writing and narrative work with patients, families, and staff. Ginny holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Georgetown University, a master’s degree in child development from Tufts University, and a CPA in narrative medicine from Columbia University. She has more than 20 years of experience working with children in residential, classroom, and clinical settings, and has focused on arts in health for the past decade. Ginny is also the founder and executive director of Writers Inc., a Massachusetts-based nonprofit dedicated to providing book publishing opportunities to children and families coping with acute or chronic illness.

• Email address: Virginia.Lewis@childrens.harvard.edu

Laki Vazakas, Senior Art Specialist (Main Campus)

Laki is a filmmaker who has been instrumental in developing the digital storytelling process with patients and families at the hospital. Laki holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Tufts University and a master's degree in cinema studies from New York University. He has also created collaborative video projects with women in recovery, refugees, adults living with mental illness, and returning veterans. His work has been screened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Cinemathèque, the Venice Biennale’s Retrospectiva, and several independent film festivals.

• Email address: Evangelos.Vazakas@childrens.harvard.edu

Brooke Mercuri, Art Specialist (Main Campus)

Brooke is a mixed media artist dedicated to using visual arts as a means for people to explore their creativity, process their experiences, and express themselves. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and studio art from Boston College. Through her work, she empowers patients to engage with a variety of artistic materials, fostering a positive and enriching hospital experience. By offering choices and encouraging personal expression, she provides patients with the autonomy to shape their creative visions and bring their ideas to life. With a background in using art to support individuals with mental and physical disabilities, Brooke believes that viewing oneself as an artist can help people realize their potential to be creators in their own lives. She is also involved with a nonprofit organization that leverages storytelling to connect with and financially support new mothers, highlighting her commitment to using art as a tool for empowerment and community building.

• Email address: Brooke.Mercuri@childrens.harvard.edu

Joy Wu (Martha Eliot)

Joy holds a bachelor’s degree in art therapy and a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling, specializing in art therapy, from Lesley University in Cambridge. With 10 years of experience supporting children in camps, classrooms, and clinical settings, she currently works as a Developmental Specialist in the Early Intervention Program at Boston Children’s at Martha Eliot. Joy uses art therapy to support children from birth to age 3 with developmental delays, employing tailored art mediums to help them build essential developmental skills. She seeks to promote art therapy within early intervention and her community, believing that "the beauty of art therapy is in receptively understanding verbal expression through the body, not just the ears."

• Email address: Joy.Wu@childrens.harvard.edu

Senior Art Specialists have offered storytelling rounds to all Boston Children’s staff at Main Campus since 2020. "Storytelling Rounds" workshops combine narrative, writing, and video art to promote inter-disciplinary dialogue and promote resilience. These workshops are typically tailored to the needs of specific units; workshops have been offered to cohorts as small as four and as large as 275. The team also offers targeted in-person and virtual workshops for patients and families. Many of the workshops and groups happen on a recursive basis throughout the week, while others are seasonal or in response to a specific request. Senior Art Specialists have also partnered with the PACT social work team to offer expressive arts-based bereavement groups since 2021.

In 2020, the art program welcomed its first student-intern. The program continues to accept rolling applications for student internships. Interns are given the opportunity to interface with members of other disciplines, to observe art sessions with patients and families, and are encouraged to develop an original capstone project throughout the course of their internship.