Middle Tennessee's #1 Online News Source Tuesday, April 10, 2007  
Conference focuses on art, medicine connections

There was a time when a national conference devoted to exploring the connections between art and medicine would have struggled to attract participants.

But when the Society for the Arts in Healthcare holds its 16th annual conference in Nashville this week, more than 350 people will be expected to attend. Scheduled to run Wednesday through Saturday at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the conference will bring together health-care professionals, visual artists, architects, designers and researchers to take part in a mix of workshops, seminars and performances.

In the last couple decades, health-care administrators, doctors and nurses have learned the importance of treating patients as people — and key to that approach is the use of the arts. More and more hospitals are incorporating art exhibits, live music and even drama programs to create a healing atmosphere for patients and their providers. VUMC has been among those institutions leading the way, and the conference will offer a chance for people from across the country to witness some of its own successes and aspirations.

"We want the environment at the medical center to be less stressful and more welcoming, and we want to create opportunities for people to think about other things," says Donna Glassford, director of cultural enrichment programs at VUMC. "Research shows that music lowers anxiety in patients, enhances sleep patterns in newborns and raises pain thresholds. So does making art."

When the SAH conference gets under way, attendees will discuss everything from Alzheimer's disease to the AIDS crisis in Africa, along with sessions on the myriad ways that the creative arts can be used to improve patient care. The event is open to interested participants, though registration fees range from $225 for one-day attendance to $650 for the whole event. (More is available at www.thesah.com.)

Still, the topics under discussion can have ramifications for anyone who comes into contact with the health-care system — which means almost everyone. Glassford cites a not-so-obvious example of one way patients might find themselves receiving better, more attentive care:

"We're doing an 'art break' for local nurses with visiting artist Henry Isaacs, who's a landscape painter from New England. His first wife died of breast cancer, so he's very attuned to illness and the power of art. The burnout rate for nurses is high, so we're offering a chance for them to have a day out at Cheekwood painting en plein air. No previous art experience is necessary, and it creates a wonderful opportunity for them to relax, enjoy nature, express themselves and get to know other nurses."

— JONATHAN MARX, STAFF WRITER
Henry Isaacs, "Autumn Lake"
Henry Isaacs' oil painting Autumn Lake is one of the works in the artist's exhibit at Vanderbilt Hospital. (VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER)

Conference brings art into public eye

A series of exhibits running concurrently with the Society for the Arts in Healthcare conference will give members of the community a chance to witness firsthand some of the powerful interactions that take place daily among artists, patients and health-care workers:

Still Life: Documenting Cancer Survivorship, showing in the lobby of the Vanderbilt Medical Clinic, features the photography of 25 cancer survivors who were given cameras to chronicle their personal experiences.

Look Again, running at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, features photographs by the young residents of Waterberg, South Africa, who learned to master their cameras with the guidance of artist Maurice Blik. London-based sculptor Blik created the SplishSplash sculpture in front of Children’s Hospital.

Henry Isaacs: Travels of a Landscape Painter, featuring Isaacs’ colorful, impressionistic landscapes, is showing in tandem at Vanderbilt University Hospital’s Mezzanine Gallery and at Gallery One, 5133 Harding Pike. Work by nurses participating in a painting workshop with Isaacs also will be on view. “To culminate, we’ll make giclées of the nurses’ work, and we’ll hang those in the nurses’ own patient care areas,” says Donna Glassford, director of cultural enrichment programs at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Local sculptor Alan LeQuire will show Cultural Heroes, his series of larger-than-life busts honoring such monumental figures as Billie Holliday, Leadbelly, Bessie Smith and Woody Guthrie, in the Downtown Hilton Hotel, 121 Fourth Ave. S. The Hilton will be providing accommodations to SAH conference participants.

The Tennessee Arts Commission Gallery, at the corner of Fourth and Charlotte avenues, is featuring the work of Erin Brady Worsham, a local artist diagnosed with ALS in 1994. Unable to speak, move or breathe independently, Worsham creates vivid, digitally generated paintings by using a wire attached to her forehead, which registers her facial movements and allows her to control the image on her computer screen. In 2003, Glassford curated a show of Worsham’s work at VUMC, presented it to her colleagues at SAH and helped secure exhibition opportunities for the artist at medical centers across the country. — JONATHAN MARX, STAFF WRITER

Reach Jonathan Marx at jamarx@tennessean.com or 259-8038.