Iowa Sculptor Helps Rheumatic Patients Heal Through Clay
As a ceramic artist, Perla Camacho Jimenez finds it cathartic to work with her hands.
But when the Veracruz, Mexico, native was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis two years ago, she worried she may never be able to work with clay again. The previously healthy sculptor suddenly became preoccupied with pain, doctor appointments, and medical bills.
“Going through the process of that isolation and depression that comes along with not knowing what’s going on with my body, I felt that I needed to connect with more people,” says Camacho, who earned a bachelor’s degree in 2017 from the University of Veracruz.
PHOTOS: SETH DIEHL
Studio arts grad student Perla Camacho Jimenez uses ceramic classes to help connect people with rheumatic conditions such as arthritis.
Fortunately, the doctor told Camacho that working with clay would actually help alleviate the stiffness in her hands. She began to focus her art on what it’s like to live with pain and enrolled last year as a University of Iowa studio arts graduate student. She also received a Graduate Engagement Corps grant from the UI Office of Community Engagement to launch a program this year called “Healing Through Clay: Ceramic Workshops for Rheumatic Patients in Iowa City.”
Most Friday afternoons throughout the school year, Camacho hosts the workshop at the Iowa City Senior Center. She packs her art supplies in a backpack and bikes downtown from her apartment near the Visual Arts Building to teach the class. Around 10 participants benefit from exercising their hands while creating pinch pots, coil pots, and sculptures. At the same time, they share and learn from each other’s experiences with rheumatic conditions. The class culminates in a public gallery showing this May at the Senior Center.
New to Iowa City—and to arthritis—Camacho appreciates how the workshop has helped her connect with others who understand her struggles. “I was like, ‘This is perfect for me,’” says Camacho, who is now in her second year of Iowa’s three-year MFA program for ceramics. “I just needed to build a little bit of community to feel myself with [others who are] going through the same thing.”
One of the workshop students is Helene Hirmes, a former sculpture instructor with the Herrig Center for the Arts in Bradenton, Florida, who has fibromyalgia and chronic back pain. “People with pain, if they isolate in their houses, do not do a good service to themselves, because getting out and talking to other people is so rewarding,” says Hirmes. “I really have most of my pain under control, but when you are working with something like art, you focus on it so intently because you’re enjoying it so much that you don’t feel any pain.”
Camacho, who also teaches Ceramics I at Iowa, hopes to continue her partnership with the Senior Center next year. She says, “I think that what they need the most sometimes is someone to listen and just be there for them. We all need that, but it’s harder when you have a disease or when you are getting older, so I feel that this workshop helps with that.”
