by Hannah Garrison | Jan 13, 2026
Welcome to AnCan’s regularly scheduled guided art class! These free sessions are open to everyone and thoughtfully designed with our chronic illness and cancer community in mind.
Each class features a pre-planned, step-by-step art lesson led by one of AnCan’s instructors. No prior art experience is required. Participants are encouraged to work at their own pace, and modifications are always offered to support energy levels, physical limitations, cognitive fatigue, and access to art supplies.
In addition to learning creative techniques, these sessions are intended to support mindfulness and emotional well-being. Art can be a grounding practice—offering a moment to slow down, focus on the present, and reconnect with yourself through gentle creative expression.
Our goal is to create a welcoming, low-pressure space where creativity can feel restorative, calming, and accessible. We do our best to make every session as accommodating and inclusive as possible, so you can focus on creating in a way that feels right for you.
Sessions take place every 3rd Thursday at 8pm Eastern time
Register for each individual monthly class
by Hannah Garrison | Jan 13, 2026
Welcome to AnCan’s regularly scheduled guided art class! These free sessions are open to everyone and thoughtfully designed with our chronic illness and cancer community in mind.
Each class features a pre-planned, step-by-step art lesson led by one of AnCan’s instructors. No prior art experience is required. Participants are encouraged to work at their own pace, and modifications are always offered to support energy levels, physical limitations, cognitive fatigue, and access to art supplies.
In addition to learning creative techniques, these sessions are intended to support mindfulness and emotional well-being. Art can be a grounding practice—offering a moment to slow down, focus on the present, and reconnect with yourself through gentle creative expression.
Our goal is to create a welcoming, low-pressure space where creativity can feel restorative, calming, and accessible. We do our best to make every session as accommodating and inclusive as possible, so you can focus on creating in a way that feels right for you.
Sessions take place every 3rd Thursday at 8pm Eastern time
Register for each individual monthly class
by Hannah Garrison | Jan 13, 2026
Welcome to AnCan’s regularly scheduled guided art class! These free sessions are open to everyone and thoughtfully designed with our chronic illness and cancer community in mind.
Each class features a pre-planned, step-by-step art lesson led by one of AnCan’s instructors. No prior art experience is required. Participants are encouraged to work at their own pace, and modifications are always offered to support energy levels, physical limitations, cognitive fatigue, and access to art supplies.
In addition to learning creative techniques, these sessions are intended to support mindfulness and emotional well-being. Art can be a grounding practice—offering a moment to slow down, focus on the present, and reconnect with yourself through gentle creative expression.
Our goal is to create a welcoming, low-pressure space where creativity can feel restorative, calming, and accessible. We do our best to make every session as accommodating and inclusive as possible, so you can focus on creating in a way that feels right for you.
Sessions take place every 3rd Thursday at 8pm Eastern time
Register for each individual monthly class
by CyberOptik | Dec 3, 2024 | Cancer Caregivers, Cancer Resources, Exercise, Mental Health, Multiple Sclerosis, Recent News, Uncategorized
Birdability: Accessibility and Inclusiveness in The Outdoors
If you’ve ever been to one of the AnCan art classes, you might know me as the art/ painting instructor. It’s me, hi! I’m the kind of person who likes to make it my business to remind everyone to take a deep breath and smell the roses. Maybe paint the roses, too. Do something you love to do. That’s easy to say to an able-bodied person. What if you’re not quite an able-bodied person, but you still adore outdoor activities, like bird-watching?
That’s where Birdability comes into the picture! Meet Virginia Rose; Birdability’s Founder and Chair Emeritus. Virginia fell off a horse when she was a teenager, and has been a wheelchair user ever since. She and Rick Davis had a chance encounter at the grocery store recently when he helped her reach a bottle of champagne from the shelves. That’s where he learned all about Birdability and Virginia’s passion for merging accessibility with her love for birds and natural spaces.
Birdability works hard to call attention to the need for accessible spaces and an inclusive mindset in places that aren’t traditionally thought of as accessible: the outdoors.
“Often it is the environment that is disabling, rather than the person who is disabled” – Birdbility
Their entire mission is to bring the joys of birding and the outdoors to those who may not otherwise be able to experience it. Birding was a hobby that Virginia really leaned into and it helped her to “discover her best self in nature”. Birding can be for anybody and and body; it’s up to the abled to be welcoming to those who may not be as abled.
There are guides galore! The website seems to have it all; For one, there is a guide on how to set up a birding event in your area. There’s a guide to accessibility considerations; a guide on using inclusive language, as well as a guide on writing your bird outing event description.
Even if you, or a friend, have some visual impairments, there are guides on how to bird watch with limited vision; including using sounds and tools to help with your identification. Maybe some of our VSS people can benefit?
Probably my favorite feature, however, has to be the birding map, which was made in partnership with the National Audubon Society and local contributors. It’s a map intended to help locate accessible trails and outdoor spaces throughout the world. You can filter through so many different features, including surface type (asphalt, concrete, gravel, etc), bathrooms along a trail, parking fees, car birding, and so much more.
I scrolled through other continents just to see what’s out there. I’m sad (but not surprised) to see that there’s not much in he way of accessibility outside the United States, Canada, and Europe. I’m sure there are more parks and places that can be added. I think this just shows how much of a necessary resource that this organization provides. Honestly, I may even use this tool myself to find accessible trails for my own outdoor activities, like painting outside in the park.
“Websites and recommendations from park staff are frequently incomplete — and so unreliable — sources of a location’s true accessibility, and what is accessible for one user may not be accessible for another.”
So many of us want to be outside, but just can’t find reliable information about how to just exist outside. It’s easy to say that an outdoor area has accessible pavement, for example, but is the concrete well-managed and actually accessible for a wheelchair or cane user? Is it on a slope? Are there van-accessible parking spaces? Is there enough shade from the sun? Are there food trucks or other snack/food options? So many things to consider.
That’s where you, if you’re interested in birding, can come in and organize a fun local meetup. You have the tools you need right here!
Anyway, hopefully it isn’t too cold for you to be outside just yet! Go check out Birdability and their Blog and tell us what you think!
Keep up with them here:
Instagram: @birdability
Facebook
Youtube
