The day began with what art therapist Paige Asawa, PhD, LMFT, described as a “color meditation.”
“Imagine the most calming color you can think of,” she said. “Imagine it as a sphere of color over your head, and as it gets closer, it washes over you like a shower, a calming shower of color.”
About two dozen participants – cancer survivors and their companions – sat with their eyes closed at tables packed with 70 shades of colored markers and tempera paints. Dr. Asawa then invited them to open their eyes, select a marker in a color that called to them and raise it up as if doodling on the sky.
They sat on the edge of expansive football fields at The Bolt, the Los Angeles Chargers’ training facility and headquarters in El Segundo. The early October afternoon of art therapy and community connection was part of the Chargers Crucial Catch initiative, which advocates for early cancer detection.
The program began in 2006, said Susie Spanos, who hosted and participated in the art therapy session. Spanos, wife of Chargers chairman and owner Dean Spanos, was diagnosed with breast cancer that year and helped launch Crucial Catch. UCLA Health has partnered with the Chargers since 2024.
“The NFL has this great, big light and we want to illuminate cancer,” Spanos said, adding that raising awareness about the life-saving potential of early detection has been her mission.
A unifying mosaic
After loosening up, participants put pen to paper for a “scribble warm-up exercise,” following Dr. Asawa’s guidance to swirl the marker without thought.
“Take whatever energy is going on in your life and put it on the paper,” said Dr. Asawa, who leads the Healing Through Art program at the Simms/Mann UCLA Center for Integrative Oncology. “It’s not about making beautiful art. It’s about expressing whatever comes to you.”
After the warmup, it was onto the main event. Each participant was given a paper puzzle piece the size of a record album to decorate in any way they liked.
The goal? To create a mosaic of puzzle pieces to reflect the strength and unity of the cancer community, Dr. Asawa said.
Conversation buzzed as the artists played with paints and markers. Some went for abstract swatches of color on their puzzle pieces. Others drew flowers. One did a Chargers logo. Still others wrote messages in words.
“Early detection saves lives,” one woman wrote. Another wrote “hope” beneath a bright, yellow sun.
Chargers defensive tackle Teair Tart, who joined the participants, wrote, “Stand up to cancer.” Tart’s teammates Ladd McConkey and Cameron Dicker also visited with guests.
Stephanie Reed drew a pair of red lips in the center of her puzzle piece to honor her mother.
“She just passed in December,” said Reed, a 31-year survivor of breast cancer. “She was there with me all along the way, so I thought about her.”
Shared journey
When the artists finished their puzzle pieces, they fit them all together on a large table. Tracy White, who drew a phoenix, attached her design to two others, then contemplated the mosaic: Everyone’s art fit together in one vibrant design.
“It’s very meaningful,” she said. “It’s everybody’s journey.”
White had never experienced art therapy before and said she found it unexpectedly soothing: “I have a hard time relaxing. It made me think I need to start drawing again.”
Before long, the table was a showcase of personal expression, like a quilt of puzzle pieces.
It’s a creation that will inspire others, said Shannon La Cava, PsyD, director of the Simms/Mann Center.
“The art you’re creating together collaboratively today, we’re going to take it back with us to UCLA Health and post it as an installation,” she told the group. “We’re excited to be able to share it.”
