Intro Art Therapy

In 1860, Florence Nightingale wrote about the effect beautiful objects have on sickness and recovery. The topic of art therapy has been researched for over one hundred years and has been researched even more in the past ten years. Throughout the 1940’s and 50’s, artists who began discovering connections between art therapy and art education started their careers as art teachers and art historians. Professionals in art therapy have continued to emerge in the past ten years and more and more people have devoted their lives to helping people recover through art.

Barbara Earnst Prey is an artist whose primary goal is to paint for the sick and help them with their heeling process Prey has been extremely successful in her work and has gotten it into many world-class institutions and private collections and has even been fortunate enough to land one of her paintings in the white house. She has inspired so many with her paintings and she gets hundreds of emails each day about installing her art in different places for people. Prey is known for her art around the world and has been honored nationally for many of her paintings. She is a role model to other artists who wish to spend their lives painting or creating great works of art for the better of the world.

My project idea was originally inspired by Tom in lecture when he mentioned how landscape paintings have been said to help patients with recovery from illness, surgery and the like. I began researching this topic and discovered that health can be defined as more than just physical well-being, but mental and psychological well-being as well. It is important to pay attention to your physical, mental and psychological state. Art has been said to help people heal from physical, psychological or emotional trauma. Whether it is looking at the art of another, or using your own creative expression to make art pieces, patients have improved their health through art therapy.

For my project, I have decided to implement my own art therapy into the world by starting close to home and donating a painting to the UW hospital. This painting will be created based on a landscape picture I have taken of lake Mendota. I think by creating my own painting made from a picture I have taken is an original way to change the world by helping patients as they recover in the hospital. Installing my painting in one of the rooms will help every patient who stays in that room by giving them something to look at and reflect upon while they lay there. Visual art therapy is effective by enhancing a persons moods, emotions, and overall psychological state. According to Heather L. Suckey and Jeremy Nobel in The Connection Between Art, Healing, and Public Health: A Review of Current Literature, “Engagement with creative activities has the potential to contribute toward reducing stress and depression and can serve as a vehicle for alleviating the burden of chronic disease”. I truly believe that I can change lives by donating this painting and allowing the visual art to enhance the emotional state of patients in the hospital.

Another reason why I chose this as my project is I have had two surgeries in my lifetime, spinal fusion surgery and ACL reconstruction surgery, and I know what it is like going through intense recovery. Each day can be a struggle, and it is not only hard to go through physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. The healing process can be emotional because you can sometimes feel helpless, especially when you do not know when you are going to feel normal again. Recovering is a mental game because telling yourself to be positive and push through is a key step in reaching a healthy mental state and eventually reaching a healthy physical state. It is hard to keep out the negative thoughts about your disease, illness, or injury and this can make recovery a longer process. Relieving a patients stress and depression and improving their outlook is something I think will make a huge difference in the world. Many people go through physical disabilities, injuries, diseases, mental health issues and the like and each of these people deserves to fully recover and return to their normal lives as soon as possible.

To talk more about landscape painting specifically, I have found that they are ore effective than sunsets because of the colors used. Sarah Grimes, the art coordinator at the UW hospital and clinics stated in our emails that daylight landscape scenes are more effective in recovery than night scenes because sunsets can be hard to read and a little too dark.

Many people devote their lives to art therapy to help those with disability, injury or disease find a better emotional well-being and recover from illness quickly and pleasantly. The American Art Therapy Association is an association of professional art therapists that are trained in both art and therapy and are educated about human development, psychological theories, clinical practice, spiritual, multicultural and artistic traditions, and the healing potential of art. The AATA states, “Research in the field confirms that the creative process involved in artistic self-expression helps people to become more physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy and functional, resolve conflicts and problems, develop interpersonal skills, manage behavior, reduce stress, handle life adjustments, and achieve insight.” People who have spent their lives researching and learning about art therapy have helped millions of people with emotional, physical and psychological recovery, which is why I want to do the same. Improvement in health and the quality of life is a valid contribution to the overall improvement of the world.

Although what I am doing for this project is a small scale way of contributing to the recovery of patients I think if I donate one and the hospital is pleased with it, I would be happy too paint more for them. Something I also thought about doing, as a continuation of this project is to create a student organization here at Madison that devotes their time to art therapy and studies the effects of their painting donations. I think that what I am doing is a good start in making a real difference for patients at the hospital here in Madison. The UW hospital is also not the only hospital in the area. St Mary’s hospital is also close by and I am interested in seeing if they are interested in receiving painting donations as well. This project leaves many open possibilities to continue with it and make it a larger scale project. I have always enjoyed art and since recovery has been a huge part of my life, this project has been a positive way for me to help people and improve our world.

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