'I hope it's as powerful for them as it is for me:' California doctor purchases Lorain student's artwork

CLEVELAND — For two years, Dr. Kimberly Zimmerman made it a point to see one drawing every time she passed through Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Once a month, Zimmerman flies between Loma Linda, California, and Cleveland to work a four- to seven-day shift at Cleveland Clinic Fairview Hospital's pediatrics unit — trading the sunny west coast for her residency stomping ground and to visit family in Norwalk. Each time she rode the escalator down to baggage claim in Cleveland, she passed "Kindness in the Kingdom," part of the CLE Loves Art youth exhibit near the airport welcome center. Originally, the display was only going to be up through the end of 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic meant Zimmerman got more chances to see what was quickly becoming her favorite artwork. "I would pray every time that it was still there because it just touched me so much and I wanted to be able to purchase it and take it to put in our doctor's charting room at Loma Linda so that all the other health care providers could see it," she said. She was struck by the piece for its parallels to working in pediatrics, she said. The piece shows a person tending to wild animals' wounds from a sprung trap. The little veterinarian is wearing an elaborate mask to blend in with the animals and make themselves less scary, and the animals they've helped heal stand ready to comfort the one currently getting its wounds treated. "None of these animals speak the same language, and yet they're all being very compassionate and helpful to each other, so that was very meaningful to me," Zimmerman said. She initially called the airport in 2020 and asked about purchasing the work, but the person she talked to didn't have a lot of information. Undeterred, Zimmerman knew the name of the school — Longfellow — and the young artist. A Google search of Cleveland Metropolitan Schools under the name brought back one that closed in the 1980s, but she eventually found the right building: Lorain's Longfellow Middle School. So she sat down and wrote Principal Andrew Hoffman a "good old-fashioned letter" explaining her interest in the piece and asking to connect with artist Lillianna Torres' family. When 15-year-old Lillianna's mother, Rachel Torres, got an email about someone wanting to buy her daughter's artwork, it was hard to believe at first, she said. "I've always known that it was good, and she does pretty good, but we just never really thought it would be where somebody wanted to purchase it," she said. But purchase it Zimmerman did, paying Lillianna $1,000 for the drawing during a brief meeting Saturday morning at Hopkins airport. It's an investment in the girl's future and her worth as an artist, Zimmerman said. "It was shocking because when we got there I thought that, you know, there's just going to be her, her art teacher and the doctor and to get there and there was a camera crew — it was really amazing," Rachel Torres said. "… As we were standing there and everything was happening, people were walking by yelling 'Congratulations.' … It was pretty amazing, I took a lot of pictures." She said her daughter has always been artistic — something she and her husband, Jimmy, have avidly supported and hope blossoms into a career. Lillianna said she was surprised by the whole event. The piece was something she'd drawn in Jacqueline Murdock's eighth grade art class two years ago; she's now a sophomore at Lorain High School. For Murdock, the meeting was a chance to highlight the creativity of students across Lorain Schools — noting "you never know where your artwork may end up." "It was a joyous moment to see Dr. Zimmerman and Lillianna meet for the first time and to listen to Dr. Zimmerman give such a vivid description of what Lillianna's artwork meant to her and how it's going to be displayed prominently in her pediatric trauma center in California and to see how Lilly's artwork has touched a human so intensely was really, really an exceptional experience," she said. Lillianna and her mother plan to open a bank account for the money she got, and a print of the work will hang proudly in their home while the original graces Loma Linda University Medical Center more than 2,000 miles away. "I hope it's as powerful for them as it is for me," Zimmerman said of her colleagues, who will soon see her latest addition to the art collection in their charting room. "One thing that a lot of us forget is the importance of art and music in our lives as a method of healing ourselves after we've seen so much trauma and chaos on a daily basis. I think it is something that we can all reflect upon — we're all animals, we may not speak the same spoken language, but compassion and healing and caring are all important, and it's something we can all share and do for each other." Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.