It’s the initially resistant patients who often benefit the most from UF Health Jacksonville’s Arts in Medicine program.
A dialysis patient with a short life expectancy wasn’t interested the first few times artist-in-residence Lauren Corbin came to his door with her cart full of art supplies. Then one day he had something to tell her: he once was a painter, but gave it up more than 40 years ago.
The patient eventually decided to paint a picture. That changed everything. He began to tell stories, he got to know the staff as they admired his artwork with him and he had something to talk about other than his failing health.
“Every day, his bed was covered in gorgeous paintings. He gave them to his family and the staff. He was able to leave that legacy,” Lauren said. She worked with him for seven weeks before he passed away.
Fighting back tears as she told his story, Lauren said patients like that are the reason Arts in Medicine is offered at the hospital. But it isn’t because of the art, itself. It’s because of the healing effect the art has on the patient’s soul.
The dialysis patient stopped focusing on his condition and instead channeled his energy into creating something. A long lost part of who he was came back, and his family was able to enjoy that side of him before he died.
“What we do may seem silly, but it can actually have a huge impact,” said program manager Christina Hunady. “When people create things, they go out of anxiety mode and start making choices. Being in the hospital can be a very out-of-control experience, but this is something they control.”
The program includes two artists-in-residence who work with patients in bedside visual arts. Arts in Medicine also arranges for performing arts at the hospital and places aesthetic artwork throughout the facility. While some of the artwork in the hospital comes from professional artists, most comes from community partners and the patients, themselves. All of the program’s efforts channel the healing power of the arts and the effect they have on the psyche of patients, visitors and staff.
Breaking through the “I don’t do art” barrier
Most patients start out turning the artists away when they stop by for bedside arts. Artist-in-residence Madeleine Peck Wagner said she doesn’t even mention art when she walks into a patient’s room. People who don’t consider themselves artists can be intimidated by the word.
“I just say, ‘Are you bored?’ or ‘Do you want to hang out for a little bit?’” she said. “Sometimes people just want someone to talk to, or they feel better doing something with their time.”
The projects the artists bring to patients are intentionally simple, like making stamped greeting cards or funny sock puppets. Patients don’t need any special instructions. The projects are designed to be successful and look good, regardless of the patient’s skill level.
The results can be seen throughout the hospital. On the first floor across from the gift shop, small birdhouses painted in vibrant colors line the wall on a shelf that zigzags above passersby. The wooden pieces are the handiwork of past cancer, trauma and maternity patients. In another display further down the hall, the wall is decorated with images of clay bowls stamped with words that were meaningful to the patients who made them: U.S.S. Kennedy, Japan, ice cream, dad, quit. Each invokes a story, which is fitting since the patients were asked to tell a story while they created their bowls.
“We look at each of those bowls, and we can remember the face of the person and the whole interaction,” Lauren said.
Sharing stories through art
Arts in Medicine also tells stories through patients in its Portraits of Hope. Just down the hall from the intensive care unit on the hospital’s eighth floor, a 30-foot photography exhibit tells the success stories of past trauma patients, serving as an encouragement to the staff, visitors waiting for news about loved ones and patients beginning the road to recovery. At the entrance of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, there is another encouraging display of portraits and stories, telling about tiny patients who struggled to survive their first weeks of life in the unit and went on to become bubbly, healthy kids.
In the Clinical Center’s East Expansion, the award-winning Tree of Life Memorial honors organ donors. Created by students in a Jacksonville University sculpture class in 2010, the memorial portrays a large tree. Leaves baring the name of adult patients who donated their organs are added to the tree every year. Butterflies honor child donors. It was named one of Florida’s top 12 public art displays.
UF Health Jacksonville’s building walls also tell the story of the staff through art. Throughout the campus, there are inspiring quotes on the walls that were submitted by staff members. There are also blown-up amateur photographs taken by employees in the hospital’s central hallway.
Even the main entrance lobby celebrates the arts. A colorful series of floral paintings above the welcome desk immediately attracts attention. It looks like the work of a professional, but in fact the paintings were created by a group of talented 9th and 10th graders from Douglas Anderson School of the Arts.
Community partners
Hunady said that school is just one of many community partners Arts in Medicine works with. It works with a number of schools and organizations throughout the community. A favorite is the I.M. Sulzbacher Center for the Homeless. Patients create stamped “wish” cards for residents of the center. When the Arts in Medicine team delivers the cards, it offers an art workshop for the center’s residents, who send back “wish” cards for patients.
“Thinking of others in crisis can help patients going through their own crises realize they’re still relevant and able to help others,” Hunady explained.
Arts in Medicine also arranges for musicians to perform in the lobby and in patients’ rooms. Occasionally, Jacksonville charcoal artist Adrian Pickett even sets up his easel in the East Expansion to create his artwork on site.
Everything works together to make a more uplifting experience for the people who spend their day at UF Health, whether as a patient, a visitor or an employee.
One anonymous note from a patient who benefited from the program sums it up:
“I know that people in the hospital tend to be grouchy. I was. I was in the mindset that the last that I wanted to do was create something, but to my surprise it really did help me. My nurses would tell you that at 3 a.m., when they came to check on me, they would find me working on something you left me, a painting, using only the red light on my finger as my light source. It helped me keep my mind cleared on sleepless nights. Please know that what you are doing helps people, and don’t stop. You made my day every time I thought about your visit.”