Painting With Parkinsons

Nancy Tingey founded the Painting With Parkinsons program in 1994 to combine her role as a community artist and art curator with caring for her husband Bob who had been diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1987 at the age of 46. 

 

In this supportive workshop program, communication skills improve, opportunities for self expression increase and feelings of self worth are enhanced through creative art activity. Distressing physical symptoms, such as tremor, may also be alleviated.

 

In 1996 she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study art as a therapy for Parkinson's and travelled to Italy, Switzerland, Holland, England, Scotland, Canada and USA.

 

Nancy received the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in 2019.  She also launched the book Magic Happens in 2019, describing an extraordinary journey over 20 years in which a recreational art class developed into a specialist program that enabled people with Parkinson’s to produce artworks of startling originality and emotional intensity.