SARAH RACHEL NAZIMOVA-BAUM ’86

SARAH RACHEL NAZIMOVA-BAUM, 52, an art therapist, interfaith hospital chaplain, and spiritual director, died Mar. 2, 2016. An art history major who was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, she combined her interests in psychology and art by earning a master’s degree in art therapy at New York University. She practiced at North Central Bronx Hospital and at other programs in New York, often focusing on geriatric populations. She then became interested in spirituality and studied chaplaincy. She interned as an interfaith hospital chaplain before running the New York Intern Program, an AmeriCorps service program in Harlem. There she supervised and mentored recent college graduates in a program combining social services, spiritual growth, and intentional community. Following that, at the time she was diagnosed with the cancer to which she later succumbed, she was counseling people experiencing life crises for LifeNet, at the Mental Health Association of New York City. She earned a second master’s, in spiritual direction, at the General Theological Seminary, and became a spiritual director. She co-founded the Spiritual Arts Practice, in which people were invited to make art with prayer and to pray through making art. In addition to her husband, Mark Nazimova, her son survives, as do her mother, her brother, her in-laws, and a very large extended family.