Health Care Fine Art

Featured Artist: JR Griffin

Untitled by JR Griffin.

Faye Urlacher is an art consultant who owns artstudio 1.0.1 in Scottsdale Arizona. She suggested that I have JR Griffin as a featured artist. She wrote: 

He does work on paper and mixed-media on wood. I think his art is so appropriate for health care in the way that it is very gentle in coloration and mimics plant life in a very abstract form.  He will at times actually insert etchings into the work for a very complimentary effect.

I think this type of art is cohesive with photography, such as yours, as it evokes that calmness that we are looking for in a healing environment.

Even though he was born in Chicago, JR has lived in Phoenix since 1976. More of his work can be seen on his website: www.jrgriffinart.com

If you have someone you would like to suggest to be a featured artist, please email me.

Challenging Art Project: Cedars Sinai Medical Center

Art at the Cancer Center Expansion at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA

One of the winners in the contest for the "most challenging art project" was Angela Ahrens. This is the text that Angela submitted: 

The 3,000-square-foot infusion unit is located in the lower level of Cedars Sinai Medical Center, where 14 infusion bays surround a centralized nursing area. The primary source of daylight streams in from a narrow row of skylights on the East side of the space, which stretches to 42 feet high from the general ceiling heights of 12 to 25 feet.

The design details capitalize on this light source by offering patients pleasing views during their four- to six-hour treatment. The design team created large backlit panels installed in the upper region of the east and west walls to visually suggest light filtering even further down into the space. Approximately eight feet tall and four feet wide, the panels depict colorful images found in nature, selected to represent a sense of life, living, and looking into the future.

The lighting subtly replicates the natural change in daylight throughout the day. Synchronized to four-hour cycles that reflect daylight’s color gradations, the light subtly shifts from rosy red in the morning to white at noon and eventually lavender at sunset. Softly back-lit instead of being lit from the front, the panels project a 3-dimensional glow that enhances the environment for patients, as well as family members and staff. If a patient falls asleep for an hour, he will wake to images that look and feel different based on the color changes, strengthening the sense of passing time in the windowless space infused with natural and controlled light.

Angela Ahrens is an Interior Designer with HGA Architects and Engineers. She is based in Minneapolis, MN. She has received a brand new copy of HealthCare Spaces 4

We are a Featured Blog on TypePad!

I am proud to say that Henry Domke Fine Art is a "featured blog" with TypePad this week.
Click here to see their featured blogs.

TypePad is the largest paid blogging service in the world. I have used TypePad for this blog since I started in early 2007.

I have to say I have been very happy working with them. They have templates which are easy to use and look professional. I never have to worry about coding (good thing, since I don't understand programming).

My two favorite blogs also use TypePad:

• Seth Godin's Blog
  
• Steve May's Blog
  

To learn more about TypePad, their website is: www.typepad.com

Specifying Healthcare Colors - what the research says

Jean Young offered a concise opinion on the use of color in healthcare in an email she sent me last week:

... there is NO EVIDENCE that shows us which color makes a difference in our healing environment. Very important to note that. There is SO much misinformation out there about this.

To back up her idea she referred me an article that she wrote called A summary of Color in Healthcare Environments: A Critical Review of the Research Literature. To read the article, which was in HealthCare Design Magazine: click here.

She also questioned the use of my language in the post "Rules for picking Colors".

I would like to recommend that you possibly reconsider renaming one item that says “Rules for Picking Colors”. We do not like to refer to specifying colors as “picking”; it really is way more than that.

Jean M. Young, ASID, CID, AAHID is President and Chief Designer/Planner at Young + Co., Inc. in San Diego.

HealthCare Leadership: New Resource on Evidence-based Design

HealtlhCare Leadership is a new free website to help you learn about Evidence-based Design (EBD). The URL for the website is: www.healthdesign.org/hcleader

The goal of the website is to "summarize the latest scientific research - also offer practical solutions, action steps and an ROI evaluation framework for healthcare executives who must evaluate and justify investments in new construction and renovation projects."

The site, which is oriented toward the "decision makers", offers a variety of free online tools. For example they have Five "White Papers" on key concepts. These are Acrobat PDF publications which are free for download:

• The Business Case for Building Better Hospitals Through EBD
• Culture Change and Facility Design: A Model for Joint Optimization 
• Implementing Healthcare Excellence: The Vital Role of the CEO in EBD
• Maximizing the Impact of Nursing Care Quality: A Closer Look at the Hospital Work Environment & the Nurses's Impact on Patient-Quality Care
• A Review of the Research Literature on Evidence-Based Design

It is the last one; the review of the research literature that really caught my eye. You can download this essential 76-page document for free. This was just published in the journal HERD. If you are serious about understanding EBD and Evidence-based Art, this is required reading.

The HealthCare Leadership website is a collaboration of the Center for Health Design and Georgia Tech. It is funded from a grant by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Time for your Flu Shot

It has been 14 months since I left medicine. I'm happy to be focusing exclusively on art now, but I miss encouraging people to get their flu shots. It is one of the most useful medical interventions that exists. It could save your life!

Since I can no longer encourage my patients I will encourage you, my blog readers to get a flu shot before Thanksgiving. The easiest way to get the flu shot is to call your doctors office and ask them if you can drop by for one. Sometimes they offer them at offices, drug stores and hospitals, so ask around.

Steve Mays interviewed me on why I encourage all humans to get a flu shot every year. You can hear the 20-minute interview by clicking here.

Featured Artist: Angela Cameron

Abstract Green and Red by Angela Cameron

I've been asking a few people to send me suggestions on artists for Healthcare interiors. Dionna Raedeke, an Art Director at Spellman Brady, proposed Angela Cameron.

 [Angela is] an artist I've recently become intrigued with, who I think creates beautiful, calming abstract photos from nature.

Her images are a bit blurry, but not dizzying, and I think work well for a contemporary, and unisex feel- meaning that they don't come off overtly feminine or masculine. Some of the photos look like beautiful silk scarves, blowing in the wind.

Angela is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, but she told me that most of her business is in the US. To see more of her work, the website is: www.angelacameron.com

If you have someone you would like to suggest to be a featured artist, please email me.

The Guild Sourcebook - Now Online & Free

The Guild Sourcebook just went online. The Guild Sourcebook connects the design trade with professional artists and their work. If you are involved with the use of Art in HealthCare, this is an essential reference. 

To see The Guild Sourcebook online: click here

The printed version is great. Filled with large full-color images, you can really see what the art looks like. But it is much more convenient to just look things up on the web, even if the pictures can't match the quality of the printed page. Plus, the website is free and open to all. 

The website is particularly easy to use. It opens up with a full table of contents, all with hyperlink to the different categories:

• Architectural Glass
• Architectural Elements
• Atrium Sculpture
• Public Art
• Non-Representational Sculpture
• Representational Sculpture
• Liturgical Art
• Lighting & Furniture
• Murals, Tiles & Wall Reliefs
• Paintings & Prints
• Fine Art Photography
• Metal Wall Art
• Mixed & Other Media Wall Art
• Fiber Art

You can also search for artists by name. Click here

I covered the print version of The Guild Sourcebook just a few weeks ago. Click here

Religious Art Offers Pain Relief to Believers

Of these two pictures by Leonardo da Vinci only the Virgin Mary reduced pain.

New research suggests that when believers view religious art they experience less pain.

Practicing Catholics perceived electrical shocks while viewing an image of the Virgin Mary (above right) as less painful than shocks delivered while looking at a non-religious picture (above left). In contrast, professed atheists and agnostics derived no pain relief from viewing the same religious image while getting uncomfortably zapped on the hand.

The research was done by Katja Wiech of the University of Oxford in England. Bruce Bower wrote an article describing the research in the October 11th issue of Science News.

To read the full article click here

I wonder about the implications of this research on art selection in hospitals. If a patient is known to have strong religious beliefs, should an attempt be made to change the art in their surroundings to offer images which trigger religious feelings?

Thanks to Dr. Upali Nanda for pointing this out to me.

Art in Italian Hospitals: Part 1

Art in Villa Cherubini, a private hospital in Florence, Italy.

Elaine Poggi has kindly agreed to do some investigative reporting on the art scene in Italian Hospitals. This will be her first report.

From my experience, I find that the private clinics in Florence have much more art displayed than the public hospitals.  Most of them are villas that have been converted into healthcare facilities and they all have a hotel-like atmosphere.  Much of the art is abstract and some of it is religious.   There doesn't seem to be any plan or theme to the placement of art.

I've spent considerable time in Villa Cherubini - surgery on my broken ankle, 5 months later surgery on my husband's broken ankle, plus my in-laws both passed away there.   The Villa dates back to the 1850s and in 1928 was converted into a Catholic healthcare facility.  Since 1991 it has been a private clinic run by friends of mine.  I have always been fascinated by the Arlecchino figure that greets visitors in the entrance.  It is curious, colorful and catches your attention.  Behind the sculpture is a very abstract painting and just up the stairway is another art work showing the Madonna and Child.  There you have it all as you enter this facility - humor, abstraction, and religion - all in the form of art.  

Elaine Poggi was born in America but has lived in Italy for decades. She founded and heads the The Foundation for Photo/Art in Hospitals a non-profit publicly supported organization dedicated to placing comforting nature art in hospital world-wide. She is also a fine photographer and frequent contributor to this blog.