Guild creates art to soothe patients
of health center at Harbour’s Edge
Artists guild member Janis Cooper, her painting on the wall,
sits with Barbara Green, who was undergoing therapy
at Harbour’s Edge in Delray Beach.
Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Story by Linda Haase
As a lifelong artist, Janis Cooper knows how color can lift one’s spirits.
That’s why she and the other members of the artists guild at Harbour’s Edge continuing care retirement community created healing artwork for the campus’s 11,703-square-foot health center.
The health center’s $6 million renovation, which included painting the walls soothing colors, expanding the dining room and adding a new kitchen in the 54-bed unit drew rave reviews, but Cooper felt something was missing.
“It needed more art,” explains Cooper, a former commercial artist and designer who moved to Harbour’s Edge in coastal Delray Beach five years ago.
But, she emphasizes, it had to be a certain type of art — the kind that helps heal. So the guild members got out their brushes and created 13 paintings, then donated them to spruce up patient rooms and hallways.
“We were passionate about it. We wanted to adhere to the protocols that help people heal. We wanted to use themes that look into the future and were optimistic so it would be a sign of a future and hope for them,” says Cooper, a graduate of New England School of Art in Boston and chairwoman of the guild.
The result: colorful, soothing, inspiring artwork depicting sunsets, archways, meandering rivers, people rowing into the distance and other paintings that evoke serenity.
Paintings by the artists guild line the walls at Harbour’s Edge in Delray Beach.
Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
“This warms up what could be a very cold area, boosts a positive attitude and can help people heal faster,” says Cooper, whose work has been exhibited in galleries including the Rosen Museum Gallery in Boca Raton and the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, N.H.
“These are pieces that touch you, that attract your eye and keep your interest. They give the patients something to think about instead of the pain they might be feeling and are nice conversation starters,” says Harbour’s Edge Health Center administrator Jennifer Stevens, who is grateful for the artwork — and even happier the guild has agreed to create and donate even more artwork (after all, there are a lot of walls at the health center). “We have some very large walls and these pictures really warm up the area.”
That’s the impact it had on Barbara Green, who is recovering from a fractured leg at the health center. “It makes it feel homey and brightens up the room,” says the Boynton Beach resident about the painting with the vivid sunset that adorns her room.
As anyone who has ever been a patient — or even a visitor — in a hospital knows, it can be a dreary, depressing, stressful experience.
Thankfully, stark white walls and white-starched uniforms that were the trademark of hospitals have gone by the wayside, says Cooper, lauding the soothing yellow/gold colors at Harbour’s Edge Health Center’s skilled nursing facility, which offers rehabilitation and short and long-term care to its residents as well as others in the community.
The call for color in hospitals has a huge following. The Foundation for Photo Art in Hospitals Inc.’s mission is “to place large, framed photographs of nature and beautiful places from around the world in hospitals to give comfort and hope to patients and their families, visitors and caregivers.” The nonprofit organization, based in St. Louis and Florence, Italy, has donated artwork to more than 200 health care facilities on six continents since it was established in 2002.
And here’s why: According the group’s website, healingphotoart.org, “Scientific evidence is clear and convincing. Viewing nature scenes plays a key role in creating a healing environment which can improve patient outcome.” And research suggests that the right kind of artwork can “reduce stress and anxiety, lower blood pressure, reduce the need for pain medication, increase patients’ trust and confidence and be a positive distraction for patients, visitors, and staff.”
Indeed. The American Journal of Public Health notes a study showing “surgery or critical care patients who participated in guided imagery or had a picture of a landscape on their wall had a decreased need of narcotic pain medication relative to their counterparts and left the hospital earlier.”
The ladies at the guild — who meet weekly at their waterfront studio at Harbour’s Edge — are ready, able and willing to do their part to help further this healing process.
One of them is Charlene Miletta, who has been with the guild since Cooper created it five years ago. “I love painting seascapes and landscapes, so this was perfect for me. I wanted to create something peaceful to help them take their minds off where they are,” says Miletta, who is in the studio at least twice a week.
For the artists, painting is just as therapeutic. The studio, which used to be a filled-to-the-brim storage unit until Cooper transformed it — is open for artists’ use at all times.
After all, inspiration can strike at any moment. And that’s a very healthy thing.
Linda Haase is a freelance writer on a quest to learn — and share — all she can about how to get and stay healthy. You can reach her at lindawrites76@gmail.com.
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