Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Lombard.
Mark, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started hospice volunteering after participating in a failed coffee shop in Bishop Arts. I thought I’d be good at it, as I was pretty good with people, and thought I may be able to help them let go. From my first patient on, I realized I was not helping them let go, they were teaching me how to grab on!
One of my patients was a classy elder, Miss Billie, who loved art as much as I did. When she started to lose strength in her legs, her therapists recommended certain leg exercises that she was not thrilled about. “Come on, Miss Billie, build up your leg strength and I’ll take you to the Kimbell.” Sufficiently persuaded, she embraced her exercise regimen not once, but twice a day and expected to stroll into the Kimbell with me in the near future. Alas, it was not to be. Miss Billie had developed scoliosis which prevented her ambulation forevermore.
Sensing her disappointment, I started bringing pieces of the Kimbell (souvenier postcards) to her with every visit. My, how she treasured them! These were not just pretty pictures for her, these were tickets out of the “prison” she found herself living. One postcard in particular from the Amon Carter Museum of American Art featured a turn of the century family picnicking by Long Island Sound on a breezy summer day. When I showed this to her, her eyes lit up. I was looking intently at the physical manifestation of what she was experiencing as she pointed to the figure closest to the water and remarked, “You know, Mark, I wish I was right THERE.” And I noticed something so astonishing that it changed my life forever. Miss Billie was no longer in Grand Prarie, no longer confined to that small room, no longer worried about her hygiene, or her sister, her aches and pains, or what’s for lunch, or any of her regular worries and concerns–no, Miss Billie was idling away the hours by the lake with her family.
“This,” I thought to myself, “is the Art Experience being made real.”
A few months later I enrolled in a leadership program that entailed creating a project in the community. At first, perplexed, it occurred to me that it would be bodacious to bring this marvelous phenomenon – the Art Experience – to people with limited mobility.
Now, you have to understand, I don’t have a million dollars nor an advanced degree in art. How was little old me ever going to pull this off? The leadership course kept emphasizing the importance of inspiring people and asking people for what you need while maintaining a strong foundation of integrity. So, I sent a letter out to all of the museums in the Metroplex (we are blessed with so many great institutions) and I got an immediate response from Katherine Maloney at The Amon Carter Museum of American Art. “Come on in,” she proposed, “I want to talk to you about your project.”
Now, I envisioned my project to consist of some museum educators coming into a nursing home and giving a lecture about art appreciation and that, once completed, I could return to my regular busy life. Little was I to know I was in the process of actually uncovering my ultimate purpose in life…
While in her Fort Worth office, she explained how important it was for The Amon Carter to reach out to this segment of the population and that, personally, it was important because she just put her father into a nursing home and was worried about his quality of life. Nervous and not knowing what was going to happen, she pulled out from under her desk a digital frame manufactured by the Digital Foci company in California. She explained how they had been experimenting with many technical devices that would make art collections portable without worrying about the imagery being pirated across the internet and this device seem the most practical. Relatively inexpensive, huge capacity for information storage, user-friendly and similar enough to a regular looking photo album that seniors would not be intimidated by its use.
POW! The lightbulb went off in my head! Here was a device that could convey high definition art to people with mobility issues. Like the mountain to the Prophet, we could bring museum artwork – and what it provides mind, body, and soul – to people at the grassroots. Katherine pledged her ongoing counseling and sent me on my way.
Now what? How does little old me approach institutions of such great standing and ask them to donate their imagery to me (the right to use an image from a museum may cost $1,000 and up)?
Well, I had an acquaintance with ties to SMU and I asked if I could drop his name in requesting us to enroll The Meadows Museum at SMU as one of our charter members. There were legal questions and subsequent contracts, but when the dust cleared, The Meadows allowed us to use about a dozen of their images for use with infirm seniors and people in hospice. We were on our way!
The next stop was back to The Amon Carter and dear Katherine who cleared the way for us to use about four dozen images, then across the street to The Kimbell who saw great merit in what we were doing and how it could forward their commitment to community outreach, and donated much of their permanent collection imagery for our use. The Dallas Museum of Art was so inspired by our mission that they pretty much gave us access to their entire collection, including the vaunted Reves Collection, from which we got our “cover girl,” Lise. There’s a bittersweet painting, “Lise in a White Shawl,” that Renoir painted of his favorite and beloved model during their last sitting. After this sitting, these two both knew they may never see each other again. You can see the Renoir’s love and sadness in her eyes. This is why we chose this painting as our hallmark, as it captures the essence of hospice volunteering. Strong bonds are formed with people, stories are told and love is shared, while each knowing this could be the last time seeing each other.
Our big breakthrough was with The National Gallery of Art. Confident of the merit of our project, I accompanied my partner to Washington, DC, where he was undergoing testing for his medical boards. And I walked into the NGA and approached the information desk with details of our project in hand. I asked that poor woman, a volunteer herself, who the Grantor of Rights and Reproduction was. Well, she didn’t quite know and pulled out an enormous telephone directory of people working in the museum along with pretty much every federal government employee you could imagine. After about a half an hour, we decided a fellow named “Peter” was the appropriate person and I made a call to him and pitched our project, by this time named “For Love & Art: Sharing with Seniors.”
He patiently listened to me, paused, and replied, “That sounds like a very worthy project, Mark. But you have to understand, we are the National Gallery of Art, a nonprofit institution. If we were to start giving our imagery away, we wouldn’t stay in business very long. And these decisions are made at much higher levels than mine and take years to process. Why not leave some information with the front desk and (what I heard) don’t call us, we’ll call you.” He gave me the contact information of the person ultimately responsible for making this decision and bid me adieu. Well, I felt like Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark giving that information away and just knowing it would be filed in some government warehouse never to see the light of day. But I demurred and came back to Dallas, whipped, my tail between my legs. Well, let’s move on… there are other museums to attract!
Still, I was unsettled. A week later in Dallas at 7 pm on a Monday night, I decided to reach out to that contact person and simply wrote, “Dear Ms. Bernard, I’m sure you get hundreds of requests for educational projects each and every year, but ours is not an educational project. It is one of mercy.”
In 20 minutes, I received an email back from this woman, “You have a blessed project and have my permission to use any of the artwork from our galleries you see fit.” It seems our mission was so strong and persuasive that it pierced the veil of the federal bureaucracy. We were going national, and, needless to say, my partner and I didn’t get much sleep that night.
Other museums were inspired and accepted our invitation to join our mission of bringing the Art Experience to people with limited mobility. The Art Institute of Chicago, The Phillips Collection, The Getty, The Crystal Bridges of American Art and, after weeks and weeks of questions and answers, I finally received a response from The Met: “Dear Mr. Lombard, after careful consideration of our board of directors, we are pleased to partner with you and your beautiful project.”
During all of this, I needed partners in having the other components work out. Our vision was to unveil our project at the Horchow Auditorium at The Dallas Museum of Art on October 30 and endow fully functional Virtual Museum ArtBooks, containing selected works from the collections of our ten charter partner museums to as many hospices as we could muster. Endowed, hospice volunteers would use the devices as engagement tools, visiting museums and showcasing their art to trigger experiences that people could share about.
Judith Pickering of The Community Hospice of Texas volunteered to be our point-person for hospices. Paula Reed, the Executive Director of the Touching Our World Foundation allowed us to umbrella our organization within her 501(c)3 aegis, in effect sponsoring our good works. And Charles Huang from Digital Foci negotiated a discounted rate on his excellent product.
In 80 days from inception to the inauguration, For Love & Art: Sharing with Seniors was launched into a grateful world. Zig Ziglar, in one of his last public appearances, was our keynote speaker, Judith Pickering spoke of the nature of hospice, Katherine Maloney spoke of museums and their importance in the community, and I emceed. Even Miss Billie, confined to her wheelchair, managed to approach the dais, stand unaided, and spoke of the nature of life. “Life is,” she insisted, “what you make of it.” And so it is.
We endowed 13 hospices that day and have since endowed 315 hospices, VA Medical Centers, children’s hospitals, and similar venues through donor philanthropy. Our Virtual Museum ArtBooks are custom-dedicated to a chosen other as memorial gifts to qualifying venues. We train caregivers how to use the device and how to engage people to share their experience. We stimulate art appreciation while empowering caregivers to love people in creative and transformative ways.
For Love & Art incorporated as our own entity in 2013 at which time we received our IRS Letter of Determination. Our board consists of two businessmen and entrepreneurs, a senior care specialist, a psychotherapist, a lawyer, a financial advisor, and a millennial technical wizard.
In 2016, at the urging of a local nursing home, we decided to visit and showcase our museum imagery on their big screen HDTV. This successful application of our mission, which we call “Celebrating the Art Experience, resulted in a tremendous boom for demand for our unique service. In 2016, we contracted with 23 senior care venues, in 2017, 32. In 2018, We added the 52nd senior community that we visit on a regular basis. Since 2016, we have made over 1,180 such “Celebrating the Art Experience” presentations to over 16,600 seniors throughout the Dallas Metroplex, San Diego, and Tulsa.
Albert Schweitzer famously remarked (paraphrased) that the tragedy in life is not that we die. It’s what dies inside us while we are still alive.
We believe that sharing one’s experience while viewing art unleashes powerful, creative, and unique experience for people and that sharing these experiences elevates the quality of life psychosocially, cognitively, spiritually, and physically. Sharing the Art Experience goes a long way in restoring “that which has died inside” and results in genuine affinity and appreciation and for the gift of being alive.
Having a strong quality of life at any age is important, but as one nears its end, it’s vital. Don’t we want happy endings for the members our communities, our families…ourselves?
Has it been a smooth road?
I struggled with my ability to partner with fine museums worldwide. As I mentioned before, I don’t have an advanced degree in art, nor do I have a million dollars. Why would they invest their trust in me? Yet, I’ve become so persuasive in communicating our project that museums are willing allies in fulfilling our mutual missions. We started with 10 museums and now we have 28, the most recent being Vienna’s Belvedere Palace Museum.
Our stated mission is “to remain viable and sustainable while bringing the Art Experience to people with limited mobility. We stimulate art appreciation while empowering caregivers to love people in creative and transformative ways.” We have big hearts and perhaps an imperfect business model. For every presentation, we request an honorarium from our senior facility clients to “Celebrate the Art Experience.” For wealthy communities, this is not a problem. For middle-class communities with stretched budgets, we offer half scholarships. For those serving the indigent poor, we provide our uplifting service at no charge.
Perhaps not surprisingly, for every venue that can afford us without the need for underwriting, two are either on a full or partial scholarship.
Funding is paramount, yet elusive. During my first coaching session with a nonprofit expert, I was cryptically told, “It’s never about the money. It’s always about the money.” Now, I understand: If we’re not viable and sustainable, we’re just a good idea. We are challenged to find funding from the business community. We think entities, such as businesses or civic groups, would gladly underwrite senior venues in their region. We applaud and yet are saddened how few grant opportunities exist for the quality of life in senior care. Personally, I continue to struggle with burn-out. I very much want to make these presentations, but as you must know, there is a huge business component to managing a nonprofit. With adequate funding, we can hire a professional Executive Director that would enable me to do what I do best; share our mission and champion the untapped riches of therapeutic art.
Measuring outcomes has been problematic; really, how does one measure joy? But as members of the National Organization of Arts in Health, we are privy to recent research dealing with measuring the quality of life biochemically and epidemiologically through endorphins and their substrates. Dr. Daisy Farnsworth has proved that visiting a museum once a month has the health equivalent of four trips to the gym! Arts in health is gaining enormous attention; physicians in Great Britain and Canada are now writing prescriptions to their patients to “visit the museum” rather than take an opioid or mood enhancing pharmaceutical.
Managing volunteers has been a great struggle. We cannot afford to contract with a community and then have a volunteer not show up to deliver the promised program. Our most pressing concern is to identify, recruit, train and retain Art Angels (community docents) who adopt a moral priority to fulfill on what they promised (we usually ask that they adopt one community and visit once or twice a month). Knowledge of fine art is helpful, but not essential. A love of art and passion to share it with people coupled with good engagement skills, mixed with a bit of willingness to learn simple technology, makes for a great Art Angel.
Prometheus brought fire to humanity to keep people warm and flourish. We bring love and art to humanity to make them glow.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with For Love & Art – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
I am proudest of everyone participating in our project has given us a 5-star rating. You’d be surprised by how many people we awaken to the therapeutic value of visual art. I worked for months on getting The Hermitage’s partnership, with many letters back and forth. It’s all been quite challenging and fun, really. Based on feedback from quality of life professionals, we have no equal.
For Love & Art’s unique program elevates the quality of life for any and all viewers. Since 2016, a small group of volunteers made nearly 1,200 “Celebrating the Art Experience” presentations to over 16,000 seniors in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, 784 presentations to over 7,700 people this last year alone. We have endowed 315 Virtual Museum ArtBooks to (mostly) nonprofit hospices and VA Medical Centers around the USA to be used as an engagement tool by hospice volunteers. We have fledgling chapters in Tulsa, Austin, New York, and San Diego.
Our goal is to generate a renaissance in art not using a context of education or even aesthetic, but one of therapeutic love. We intend to awaken an army of volunteers who are EAGER to visit with the infirm and free them from prisons of fear, loneliness, boredom, and despair. Together, we can alter senior care using simple human love, digital technology and the extraordinary power of art. We already cause tremendous good in the world – we are being the change we want to see in the world, and with your readers’ support and recognition, our growth will be exponential.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Dallas/Fort Worth and points in-between have become must-visit destinations in the Art World. So many venues to quench cultural thirst! We’re privileged to quench this thirst for people who cannot physically make it to the museum. I least like Friday afternoon rush hour traffic.
Pricing:
- Virtual Museum ArtBooks, custom-dedicated to donor specifications in honor of a chosen loved ones, are endowed to hospices for $750.
- We request $100 honorarium for each hour-long “Celebrating the Art Experience” presentation. Scholarship aid is available.
- A $25 expense reimbursement is allocated to Art Angels for each presentation.
Contact Info:
- Address: 4848 Lemmon Avenue
Suite 100-623
Dallas, TX 75219 - Website: forloveandart.org
- Phone: 8554278669
- Email: Mark.Lombard@
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Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
jennifer Glanton
February 7, 2019 at 10:55 pm
Thank you Voyage Dallas for this article. It is important that we stay visible online and that we get new people to come check us out. We recently started selling items on Ebay for Charity and we hope that folks reading this article will go check it out. Visit our Donation page on our website: http://www.forloveandart.org for all the ways you can help out and donate funds.