An artist finds inspiration in caregiving. You can see her art at the Da Vinci Art Alliance

Eight years ago, artist Ginny Ferrante Perry suffered a ruptured appendix. While in recovery at Doylestown Hospital, she was visited by a local chaplain, which changed the course of her life.

“This chaplain listened to me, and she was very compassionate,” Perry said. “And when she left, I said to myself, ‘I want to do something like that.’ What a beautiful thing to do.”

The demands of her full-time job as a high school teacher meant that training to be a hospital chaplain was not a possibility. Instead, she began volunteering at Pine Run, a nursing home in Doylestown in 2017. Her weekends with the home’s residents eventually inspired her to paint.

“Not Forgotten,” the exhibition of her art at the Da Vinci Art Alliance, is a record of the several years she’s spent serving, befriending, and painting Pine Run’s residents. Some have passed away during this time, others suffer from debilitating ailments. Any viewer will be struck by the diversity of portraits, in terms of color, size, and material, but the thread that ties the entire series together, is the tenderness with which each patient has been treated.

The exhibit is on the second floor of the gallery. Several paintings run along one wall and the largest among them are painted in ink. In between each of the ink portraits are canvas paintings, much smaller in size and completed in acrylic. A single wall is occupied by the largest painting of the exhibit, titled Ben, Perry’s favorite. Ben was an artist, teacher, and author. They would sip coffee and draw together. He eventually succumbed to Alzheimer’s.

Many of the residents’ stories, such as Ben’s, were written down by Perry and can be read at the exhibit.

Other favorites include Betty. A pensive woman is seated in a chair, looking away; her hands are closed into a fist. Behind her are faint outlines of people walking. A swirling field of gray and black marks separates Betty from the others. An isolation from the outer world, Perry said, is something many residents experience.

Perry’s aim was not to reproduce what she sees with extreme accuracy. For one, she wanted to safeguard the residents’ anonymity and she believes a precise rendering would fail to capture each of their rich, inner lives. The strokes are patient and fluid.

Ultimately, Perry wishes to see more volunteers in nursing homes, serving the elderly. Through her work, she hopes to bring more awareness to an often-forgotten population. “We’re very uncomfortable to see people who are at the end of their lives,” she said. “But they had very full lives. They want to reach out to people. They want people to hear their stories.”

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“Not Forgotten” runs through Feb. 19 at Da Vinci Art Alliance, 704 Catharine St., Phila. For details visit: https://davinciartalliance.org/not-forgotten