A Brush with Kindness: Turning Art into Healing Moments

When you vis­it South Bend Clinic’s (SBC) Imme­di­ate Care Cen­ter loca­tions, you might notice a small col­lec­tion of hand-paint­ed rocks on the front desk. Each rock is a unique piece of art — fea­tur­ing every­thing from play­ful char­ac­ters to calm­ing designs — with one sim­ple pur­pose: to bring com­fort to any­one who holds them.

Behind each of these col­or­ful cre­ations is Phongsamout K., a radi­ol­o­gist tech­nol­o­gist at SBC who, for near­ly three years, has embraced a sec­ond role — artist. Her cre­ativ­i­ty and com­pas­sion have brought unex­pect­ed moments of calm and joy to patients of all ages.

The idea began when Phongsamout start­ed work­ing week­ends at SBC. She noticed many young patients arriv­ing scared, anx­ious, or in pain — and she want­ed to find a way to help, even in a small way. She shared her idea with Dr. Louis Cava­di­ni, an Imme­di­ate Care Cen­ter physi­cian, who imme­di­ate­ly sup­port­ed it.

“I had nev­er paint­ed before — I actu­al­ly failed art class,” Phongsamout said with a laugh. ​“But I love going to the beach, and I had start­ed col­lect­ing rocks. One day I thought, ​‘Why not try paint­ing them?’ I asked Dr. Cava­di­ni if it would be okay to share them with the kids, and he said, ​‘Yes, absolute­ly — for the kids.’”

She began paint­ing lit­tle by lit­tle, and soon her hand-paint­ed rocks found a home on the front desk — ready to greet patients with a splash of col­or and a dose of comfort.

“With lit­tle boys, some­times it’s hard to get them to sit still for a chest X‑ray,” she said. ​“So I’d say, ​‘If I give you a Spi­der-Man rock, will you hold still for me?’ And they would! They loved it.”

What began as a sim­ple act of kind­ness quick­ly blos­somed into some­thing more. Phongsamout soon expand­ed her art­work from rocks to can­vas, trans­form­ing blank clin­ic walls into vibrant mini gal­leries filled with uplift­ing images.

“I didn’t know how to paint at all — I just kept prac­tic­ing,” she said. ​“I start­ed with scrap paper and even­tu­al­ly moved to can­vas. Peo­ple loved it. Patients loved it.”

Her art began mak­ing emo­tion­al con­nec­tions — some­times in deeply per­son­al ways.

“One time, a woman walked into the X‑ray room and saw a but­ter­fly paint­ing. She broke down cry­ing,” Phongsamout recalled. ​“Her son had passed away in a car acci­dent, and before he died, he told her he would come back as a but­ter­fly. That paint­ing remind­ed her of him. We gave her the painting.”

It’s moments like these that inspire Phongsamout to keep creating.

“A lot of patients going through can­cer treat­ment have told me that look­ing at the paint­ings helps dis­tract them,” she shared. ​“One patient came in with a bro­ken leg, and she said, ​‘Thank you for this — it helped me not focus on the pain.’”

Phongsamout donates most of her art­work to the clin­ic. Dr. Cava­di­ni, who saw the pos­i­tive impact it had on patients, even stepped in to help cov­er the cost of supplies.

“I pay for a lot of it myself, but he’s been amaz­ing,” she said. ​“He saw how it was help­ing peo­ple and want­ed to sup­port it.”

Out­side the clin­ic, her pas­sion has grown into some­thing even larger.

“It got so big that I start­ed paint­ing at home, too. I even have a small busi­ness now where I sell my art at events. But the rocks — I still paint those just for the kids,” she said.

Has she always been artistic?

“Not at all,” she said. ​“I nev­er thought I could do this. But when I saw how it made peo­ple feel, I just kept going.”

The expe­ri­ence, she says, has changed her in more ways than one.

“I’m so grate­ful,” Phongsamout said. ​“It’s not just about help­ing the patients. They help me, too. Some days are hard, but when some­one says, ​‘Your paint­ing helped me feel bet­ter,’ it lifts me up. They don’t even know how much that means.”