Healing Light

Forty-one Junior High school students at St Mary’s Academy spent one week becoming familiar with the public art process & their responsibility for creating an installation about healing for their local hospital. Under Suzanne’s guidance, they began by defining healing. What makes them feel good? What helps the healing process & helps to prevent illness? They identified the patterns in our lives that can keep us well or help us heal & narrowed those ideas into succinct verbal thoughts. Those thoughts were translated into drawn images, then those drawings were simplified into black & white, to-scale collages that represented solid & cut out areas.

Their collages were combined on nine vertical paper panels that finally became the laser cut metal panels of the pendant lights adorning the Main Lobby of the Hood River Hospital. The lights integrate beautifully into this bright, art filled entry. Suspended above the Volunteer Greeter Desk, they are the first artwork one sees. The warm brown finish & amber glow of the plexiglass complement the soft natural colors of this welcoming space.

Starting with nearly no knowledge of public art, this journey was a eye opener offering real world experience & a final product that the students & public are very proud of.

A spiral bound book of all the designs with a corresponding photograph of the artist & their description of what they felt was essential for healing (what makes them feel good and what is good for the planet) was presented to each student with a copy available in the library & at the reception desk.