Blake Crisses was born in 2010 with clubfoot, a condition where her foot bent inward. She chose casting and braces over surgery—a year in a knee-high cast, plus nighttime braces. At age four, she walked without a limp.
Diagnosed with ADHD as a child, Crisses found relief in art. She drew constantly, filled notebooks, painted her walls. When she returned to the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York to volunteer—the same place that treated her foot—she noticed the newly renovated Pediatrics Ward had interactive fish tanks and craft stations, but bare walls.
"What if I made art specifically for that place?" she thought. Art that lifted kids up at their lowest. Art that might inspire them to create their own.
Two years later, that idea has expanded. According to Rolling Stone, Crisses's paintings and artwork from children she's connected with online now hang in 22 hospitals across nine countries. Most submissions come from children on cancer wards.
Crisses still struggles to complete basic tasks. Her ADHD doesn't disappear—it drives her forward. She wore out her parents with pitches for Art2Hearts, moving between hospitals, foster homes, and special-needs schools. But when she met the founder of a nonprofit, the pieces aligned.
A teenager who refused to forget where she came from decided sick kids deserved more than sterile walls.
