Complications from six knee surgeries have limited the former elementary school teacher's mobility; painting has helped her restore her confidence and find a new mode of self-expression. Now she is painting dramatic landscapes with glorious, uplifting sunrises.

Buster Medeiros suffered a spinal-cord injury playing football for Saint Louis 30 years ago. He discovered painting at the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific 14 months ago. He has some use of his right arm but not enough to hold a brush, so he paints his landscapes with the brush in his mouth.

"It's a challenge, but I've begun to look at nature in a different way, and I want to capture it in my own little world," he said, in between dabbing ochre oil paint, Seurat-style, to create sand on an O'ahu beach.

Four years ago, Hermine Vasconcellos suffered a stroke that left her with difficulty speaking. Now she communicates on canvas. What she values most is the camaraderie in the twice-weekly art classes: "I feel so lucky when I see what others are going through and they're here, painting and enjoying themselves."

The Louis Vuitton Creative Arts Program at Rehab provides an artistic outlet for people who have suffered physical or cognitive problems such as strokes, traumatic brain injuries and amputations.

'Ohana is a term that comes up frequently when talking to participants in the Rehab art program. There is a bonding that takes place over the canvases. "We have become a family of artists who are learning to paint and provide support for one another," Yamate said, adding that the program "gives us the opportunity to share an openness and generosity of the heart that makes the disability part drop away while we are there."

Artist Jodi Endicott, a supporter of the program, said: "Art helps people heal. These are people who have never painted before and never knew they had it in them."

Endicott is one of the many prominent artists from the community who are donating work to the benefit event Art From the Heart (see box). Others are Mamoru Sato, Mark Brown, Deborah Nehmad and Mary Philpotts McGrath. More than 500 works by Rehab artists and professional artists will be available for sale.