Sunday 18 January 2009

New Norfolk and Norwich Hospital Arts Project Website



The New and amazing hospital arts project website has been launched into your home, so you can now see all the wonderful work that has been going on there and the new projects in the future. The hospital arts project has been running for well over ten years and is a huge success, gone are the days when hospitals were all grey or white. Art is very important for good health for everyone. When I was in Australia I worked with thousands of people who had never done art before. Once they had ago they never looked back and the results were all positively beyond my own comprehension. I have a few examples one lady I helped to paint her first painting she was in her early forty's and completely deaf and could not speak she was totally frustrated with not being able to communicate with people. After she had finished her painting we had a big group exhibition and on the opening night she cried in front of her family that were there. She had painted herself inside a cage inside her giant ear on canvas. I asked if she was OK and one of her family said she was crying because this was the first time she was able to express herself in her life. It was very moving. She now paints all the time and made a studio for herself.
Now there are many individual cases that would make up volumes of books.
The hardest thing for the Hospital Arts project is how do you please everyone who are all different from patients to nurses and staff all at once. Well Emma Jarvis has worked extremely hard at doing that at the hospital. Inside and outside there is art everywhere from atrium's to corridors to wards to floors to ceilings. She certainly deserves an award from the Queen for all the time and thought and overtime she has put into it.
Where do I fit into all this, well I am a hospital arts volunteer, which I really could not pin point the exact job description because it changes daily. My main job is to look after Miss Jarvis and listen and bounce ideas back and forth, then there is the physical jobs of shifting and lifting and hanging work at 2 am when everyone is asleep. Or on occasions being an emergency stand in artist with my own art work, when an artist who is suppose to be lined up doesn't show up.
Yesterday was an acception I did not show up for the website launch because I had a cold and did not want to walk through the wards and give it to very sick people on the mend.
Last week I made some special authentic buttons for the website and assisted as a navigator on a trip to a printers in a remote location. This week I am designing furniture for the children's area. Next week I will be looking for carpenters and joiners who would like to build the furniture.
If your looking at the hospital arts website my buttons are under interior design, then press the case study button.







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