Robin Constable Hanson is one of the most successful healthcare artists in the world. Recently she let me interview her to get a glimpse into her life:
Early in your photography career you did a wide variety of work; even fashion photography. What triggered your move to specialize in creating art for healthcare?
I started selling photographs when I was 14, and it was pictures of women models that came through my Dad's studio in Los Angeles. I loved fashion and dance, and my Dad was a noted photographer of women all my life. It was lots of fun and I was good at it. It was a time of great inspiration in fashion photography, with Avedon, Penn, Newton in every issue of Vogue.
To take this to the bigger world, I moved to Paris for a time in 1978. I realized that I didn't want to live so far away from family, and that the fashion business is based more on who you party with than the quality of work you produce. I came home with a lot of stylized photographs of Paris that caught a gallery owner's eye, did my first one-woman show. That in turn sparked the interest of a former roommate in college who was at loose ends. A PhD in anthropology didn't lead to many job offers, so he showed some of my images of desert florascapes to Kaiser Permanente, and they bought them. Huge prints, and my life changed forever. The photographs that I had done for my herbal field guides, and scenes to show my Mom, suddenly had a broader audience.
One project led to another. In 1986 I was awarded a GSA contract (have been on schedule ever since), and that led to many projects with VA and DoD healthcare facilities.
2. You have worked for years creating nature art for healthcare in conventional hospitals as well as military hospitals. How are they different from one another?
I would say that the major difference in private sector vs military hospitals projects, for me, is the incredible freedom I get in working with the DoD. There is a real chain of command in the military, which means that you are accountable for doing a really good job, but are accorded a lot of freedom to exercise your creativity to make it spectacular. Not a lot of micro-managing by anyone. The main directive is to just make it look good. They know they are there for usually 2 years, not a lifetime like doctors at a community hospital. When we did Walter Reed for MG Timboe, of the many hundreds of images in the proposal I submitted, not one was changed. The same at Landstuhl for COL Gamble.
The DoD medical centers are enormous, so using the photographs for subliminal wayfinding (one of our specialties) is key. Getting from place to place in a million square feet is confusing. We use color, geographical regions, themes.... something different for every facility. Incorporating images that are "Oh, I know where that is" (local), to "I want to go there" (idealized place). The servicepeople have generally traveled everywhere, so I try and have a representation of where they have been to create a sense of home. After working on these projects for 20+ years, and taking pictures specifically for projects everywhere, I have an enormous library of images that are "Home" no matter where home really is. Japan, Germany, Colorado, Texas, DC....
How would you describe your work, your look?
I have more than one look, but the genre that is most popular with our military healthcare projects are an intimate scene. Like looking out of the most beautiful window. Human scale, so people don't feel insignificant, and big enough so they can have a sense of escape. Perhaps a pathway leading in, or a stream winding through. Usually we offer detail images that coordinate with the scene, like leaves floating in the water, or the curl of a fern stalk. Tulips to bracket a panorama from the garden in Holland.... Not as the main image, because I think scenes are "it" when it comes to providing stress relief in a hospital, people really need that sense that their imagination can lead them to this better place for a moment. There is something magical about the intimate view, too, though, and since I've always done it, I show it.
You travel extensively to get the pictures you need. How do you decide where to go?
I have a house full of books and magazine articles! I am a collector of information. I find out where / when things are happening in the natural world: when the cherry trees bloom in DC, when the fruit orchards bloom in California, when the tulips peak in Holland.... and what people whose vision I admire like to see when they go places. I study paintings and photographs by people whose work I love. I study landscape architecture books to see what gardens are must-sees and which are not my cup of tea.I go take a look. Then I practice. A lot.
What do you think is the biggest mistake the military makes when creating healthcare environments?
I don't think I can answer this question, as the military healthcare facilities I have been involved with are amazing places where the healing and compassion is astounding. I've never encountered more caring and skilled healers, or people more dedicated to taking care of their patients. Does the building contribute to this sense of mission? Sometimes. The buildings are getting better and better. And of course they have issues that civilian hospitals never have to consider: how to contain bio-warfare fallout, traumatic brain injury, amputee rehabilitation, substance abuse treatment.... as well as the normal surgeries, births, treatments and diagnosis centers.
Do you have a favorite place to take pictures, a place you go back to again and again?
I have Many favorite places, and I do go again and again. The past 2 autumns I have spent in New Hampshire and Vermont, rejoicing all over again in the fall turn. Going there from DC, I have stopped at Longwood Gardens, and it's always amazing. Gardens are my favorite, though I love the wild spaces too. For gardens in North America, Longwood, The Missouri Botanical Garden in St Louis, and the Huntington Library here in Southern California have to be the best. The Huntington is my "home" space, and I try to get there every week or 2. When I get an artistic block, I can go and get lost in the patterns of the desert garden, and everything makes sense again. The Keukenhof is where I want to be every April, New Hampshire every October, with summer in England in-between. In a perfect world! But being here on the beach with the golden retrievers isn't bad either.
There has been two major changes in photography during your career. First was the transition from film to digital. Then there has been the transition from prints being made in dark rooms to prints coming out of printers. How has this impacted your work?
I started working in photography when I was 7, doing black & white production printing for my Dad. I think the long history of having to know photographic technique, grey scale and composition, are one of the reasons I am a good photographer. It's too easy to snap a digital picture without having to stop and think of technical aspects that raise it from a snapshot to an image that takes the breath away and has appeal that lasts forever. It's fun to have the results be instant (and free after the cost of equipment), but the discipline is key.
The prints I use in healthcare are not inkjet prints, they are true photographs, though the paper is exposed with a laser beam reading a computer file, rather than a light passing through film. I'm not totally sold on the inkjet look yet, though I know it's what you do, Henry. Maybe when I see more of my images done that way, I'll like it better. Maybe it will be more to my taste if the images are more abstractions to begin with, like yours are. For crisp scenes, I really love the real photos.
What are some of your most popular images?
The most popular images depend on the project! For Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, all the images were from Texas. For the DiLorenzo Clinic at the Pentagon, most of the pictures were from DC. I get a lot of people asking me where the cove at Pfeiffer Big Sur is (they want to go have a picnic there), the gazebo at Longwood Gardens, and of course the Keukenhof, though everyone stationed in Germany has probably been there. Japanese Gardens are always popular, and I think that with just a couple of exceptions I've been to all the ones in North America, many of them repeatedly. Every few years I get a new obsession; one year it was wisteria, another year it was bearded irises, lately it's waterlilies and lotus flowers. Once I show it, people love it. Most of the images I've done, no one ever sees. Because of doing custom proposals primarily, rather than showing it all on the internet, it's on an as-needed basis that I get images ready to show. Maybe if I had winter instead of gorgeous weather every day, I would get more computer work done and post it all on our website. Or maybe not.... have about 500,000 images so far and do more pictures most days.
What’s the best compliment you have ever received on you work?
I have a lot of people sending emails from various projects, and the best thing I ever hear is that having the pictures in the facility made the hospital experience more bearable, even provided some pleasant moments. I've made friends through the pictures; one of my dearest friends is a retired general who contacted me while his wife was undergoing treatment for multiple myeloma at Walter Reed. They would walk the hallways on her too-frequent visits, and it made her happy to see the pictures. He is who I have been staying with in DC while shooting the new art for the hospital at Fort Belvoir. A friend forever because of doing what I love---- doesn't get better than that.
Another story from Walter Reed (we did many hundreds of photos there for their 7-story monster in 2000), is a friend whose son got hit by an IED in in Baghdad while a Ranger there. He spent 8 months in rehab at WRAMC, and it was doubtful if he would ever move again. His Mom was there for him every day, and she told me that when she got off an elevator and didn't recognize the pictures, she knew she was in the wrong place. She was too dazed and traumatized to know where she was without those guideposts. A happy ending: he made a full recovery and went back to Iraq (maybe that part wasn't what his parents hoped for!)
If you’d like, feel free to ask yourself another question that you think is important to address.
While the plus side of working with military (primarily Army) medical facilities is the creative freedom, working with incredible people who are really there because of their need to provide Selfless Service, and the opportunity to have these huge galleries, the negative side is what has happened in military contracting. Many times since 9-11, we have been asked by a commander to do a proposal (that I do for free), and the project ends up in the bid process and goes to a company that provides art ---- posters usually--- for cheaper. The client doesn't get the quality or the product they want and deserve, and my time has been spent without any payment. I don't know how to fix this problem, but the Army is working on it.The other down-side to these big projects, is that being involved at the construction stage, providing custom images, means a huge investment long before the project comes to print - install stage. I get to create images for specific spaces, and that's amazing and how it should be, but it's tough on the family budget. The current project I'm working on at Fort Belvoir has required 3 2-month shooting trips to the DC area so far, with a few more to go. And the art won't start to go in for a long time yet. It's an enormous honor to be chosen, and I'm the most fortunate photographer in the world, but economically it's a challenge.
Robin Constable Hanson is a photographer based in Southern California. To see Robin's work, her website is: www.robinconstablehanson.com
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