The Healing Arts -- UW Med Center's Rx For Health Includes Paintings, Sculptures, And Installations

The hospital is a public place for private events. It's a place where choice and comfort may fall prey to other, imperative needs. The staff, patients and visitors contend with bustling hallways, bleating public-address systems, crowded waiting rooms and care units full of sharp-edged electronic equipment. Little enough time or space for art appreciation, you'd think.

"When I first came here, I felt really apologetic about imposing art on an environment where it was life or death every day," says Lynn Basa, who became director of the art program at the University of Washington Medical Center in 1986. Since then, the former corporate art consultant has discovered that "art really does make a difference" to the patients, visitors and staff at the sprawling training and research center, which serves residents of Alaska, Montana and Idaho as well as Washington.

The hospital does not stand alone in its philosophy that "healing is accomplished when the health of the human spirit is addressed along with that of the body." Other Seattle-area facilities also are demonstrating an awareness of the role performing and visual arts can play in their mission. )

At the UW, however, one can trace many of the issues every hospital art program must face - including the challenge of selecting art in a situation quite different from choosing it for a school, a courthouse or even a bus tunnel.

Stand near the Cascade elevators at the eastern end of the

hospital and you'll hear a muffled thumping. It's "Stetho," a piece of active environmental art by Patrick Zentz of Montana, who wanted to honor the orchestrated activity of the medical center with an audible symbol. The metal drum cylinders of "Stetho" gleam in the light from many windows; their resonant bonks are triggered by an electronic eye that tracks people moving through the area.

At the Women's Clinic, toddlers waiting with their mothers pat their hands over the pastel ceramic bumps of "Fecundity," a joyful mural by Deborah Sherwood. A blown glass bowl by Sonja Blomdahl stands on a pedestal nearby; Basa helped the clinic's nurses select the glowing work as a memorial to an elegant, sensitive colleague.

"Each piece has a story behind it," Basa says of the approximately 180 artworks in the collection. With an initial purchase grant of $125,000 from the medical center's Service League, and annual additions from the volunteer support organization since then, Basa has managed to locate and commission artists in the four-state area served by the medical center. They may be as different as Zentz and Blomdahl, but they share certain qualities.

"I've tried putting my finger on it before, and the closest I can come is that this is art created by people whose intention is to reach out to the viewer," Basa says.

"I think the work we have here is very human-scale. It's about everyday experience."

Basa is adamant that the "elitist baggage" art sometimes carries has no place in a medical environment. "I believe it's irresponsible not to take the public's needs into account," she says.

For painter Jack Gunter of Stanwood, the route to public art in the cause of healing took a personal path. While living in Boston to care for his brother, the artist painted out his homesickness for the Northwest. His brother gazed by the hour at Gunter's views of clam diggers bending to their task. He found comfort, energy and - when his condition eventually worsened - acceptance of his terminal illness, Gunter said.

"The sicker he got, the closer to death, the more he wanted simple pictures," Gunter recalls.

The experience remained with Gunter as he prepared the jolly, colorful quartet of paintings he calls "Peaceable Territory." Drawing some of its imagery from Edward Hicks, the American primitive artist who set lion and lamb side by side in "The Peaceable Kingdom," Gunter's series shows the Seattle neighborhood of Montlake in the past, present and future.

"Peaceable Territory" will be hung in a new outpatient waiting area, where people are likely to have the time to consider and explore the paintings.

Elsewhere, the function of art is different. Art on the walls, displayed in cases, or even suspended from the ceiling like "Stetho" is one thing. Art as an involving expression of the patients themselves is quite another.

Several days a week, artist-in-residence Dianne Erickson pushes a heavy cart painted an eye-catching fuchsia through the halls. Since 1987, Erickson has worn out one set of rubber wheels and is working on a second, taking art projects to the people who can't come to her.

"This is something to look forward to, an activity that lets someone play a little," Erickson says.

"Wish I Were There" fantasy vacation postcards in watercolors went over well on the rehabilitation ward recently. And when Erickson showed one enterprising patient in Intensive Care how to make button collages, he immediately started a series for everyone else waiting for heart transplants - with mottos such as "Don't take your heart to heaven. Heaven knows we need it here."

This day, Erickson's schedule puts her on the problem pregnancy ward. Here, tenterhooks of anxiety sink deep. In a semi-private room, one young mother is anticipating discharge after a few days of stabilizing treatment; the other has been told she'll be in bed for at least another five weeks. Erickson presents a series of ideas for projects, and within 15 minutes, both patients are coiling and stitching on baskets to store the inevitable hospital clutter around their beds.

"Healing and getting better is a creative process itself," Erickson says.

Easily handled in bed, rapidly completed and of immediate use, an art-cart project gives a patient control in an environment where choice and mobility are often limited. Similarly, the poster cart, operated by Service League volunteers, allows patients to select for their rooms exactly the style of art they find most restful or interesting.

Nor are staff members forgotten in the quest to add art to healing. The medical center is developing an art club that will take regular jaunts and encourage creative outlets among employees, and staffers are an integral part of the art-selection committee. Thanks to support from the King County Arts Commission and the efforts of the nonprofit Mission for Music and Healing, music is performed on the wards on a regular basis - to the delight of patients and caregivers alike.

While the live music and the art cart are easily apparent, Basa believes some of the greatest artistry at the medical center lies behind the scenes, in the way the permanent art has been selected. "The collection we have up here symbolizes the last stage of a long process that involved listening to staff and to patients, including staff in our decisions and really giving them some choices," Basa says.

Passing through a waiting room, Basa asks a patient what she thinks of "Invisible Dance" by Jack Chevalier. The woman is delighted to oblige. Later, as Basa shows visitors around the radiology area, a nurse comes over to share the staff consensus on a temporary installation in the hall.

Basa always welcomes ideas, but some of the most enlightening moments can occur without words.

"Stand here a minute, and you'll see what I mean," Basa says, halting not far from "The Truth and Nothing But the Truth," an installation by Gayle Bard.

Sure enough, a man pulls up short and starts checking out the different views offered by Bard's two doors to reality. Once again, art at the medical center has served as an encouragement to experience life.