The art of healing: noting the ongoing positive impact of arts in the clinical setting, hospital administrators, artists, consultants, architects, designers, physicians and patients work together to ensure a healthful, uplifting environment

Art Business News, Sept, 2003 by Julie Keith

Hork concurred that artwork depicting the natural world is often the most successful, although teaching hospital officials that "natural" can mean more than just landscapes is sometimes a challenge.

"A lot of hospitals are following research that said that landscapes are the most soothing or comforting images for patients, and some institutions take that literally. They put landscapes everywhere--every room, every hallway. We want to encourage them to appeal to a broader clientele."

Hork said that Studies done on patients, in which images of different paintings were projected onto a screen at the foot of their bed, indicated that people respond better to landscapes than paintings by Dali or Pollock, for example. Physical responses such as heart rate, respiration and other indicators were measured, with the calmest responses occurring when patients saw realistic landscapes.

"But many of the elements of the traditional landscape painting can exist in a different type of artwork--the colors, the scenery--and patients still have the same calming response," she explained.

Emerging artist Shifra Stein, a member of the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, also believes in the healing power of art, especially art with a strong natural subject. Her free-form pieces in watercolor and masa paper express joy and celebration through color and texture. Her "Art for the Health of It" workshops, playshops and healing retreats encourage participants to be creative and discover themselves through the process of making art, and her personal works appear in health and wellness centers around the country.

Installing Hope

Diane Brown, director of Rx Art, a non-profit organization that places art in healthcare settings, said hospitals--and patients--are beginning to grasp the benefits of placing high-quality, original artwork in their facilities. "It's not as hard to get hospitals and staff involved now," she explained. "After working closely with a few institutions, we can show other [ones] how important it is to have artwork there."

Brown said her best client and model is Schneider Children's Hospital, which is affiliated with Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y. Rx Art worked with the hospital and with an artist to install a system that projected large images of animals moving across walls, along floors and on other surfaces in the building--even in daylight. "It was incredible," Brown said. "We even had older kids--11-, 12-, 13-year-olds--going up to pet the animals." She related the story of a young boy who was so caught up in watching the projections that he gave little thought to the radiation treatment he was waiting to receive. "He asked, 'Do you think there will be another animal up when I get back?' and I said, "I think there might be. He came running back from his treatment to see what was going to be shown next, and it was so great. While he was in radiation, he wasn't thinking about it or his illness at all. He was thinking about those animals:'