by Thomas Hobson
Child Life Director

There are many exciting aspects of Le Bonheur Children’s new hospital building, and one of my favorite parts is all of the art going into the building.  If you’ve never had to be part of a team that has to find appropriate artwork to fill a 600,000+ square foot building, it is no small task.  Considering the number of rooms and what we know about the impact of environment on healing, it can seem overwhelming.

However, Le Bonheur Children’s has a wonderful team of people that are helping to make art in the new building a reality.  They have worked tirelessly to find artist and pieces that fit perfectly for the feel of the hospital.  I’ll revisit in a couple of weeks and talk more about this team, but trust me when I tell you that there will be a lot of exciting art.

Most recently, Le Bonheur Children’s welcomed Carol DeForest to help Le Bonheur Children’s create an art project call Mapping Our Lives.  The finished product will be an approximately 21-foot mural that will turn along several walls. The piece examines the individuals’ paths of lives and how they intersect at various points on the map.  It is a wonderful way to honor the relationship between patients, families, and staff, with the road leading to Le Bonheur Children’s.

Ms. DeForest is working with patients, families, staff, and people in the community to “capture” parts of their lives in clay.  People participating in the group have a wide variety of options of what to create.  It could be their own house, a self-portrait, a garden, pet, or school.  However, they could create plants, trees, special signs, or other things along the path to Le Bonheur Children’s.

The following pictures are from the first workshop help in the hospital, last Friday.  For the Le Bonheur Children’s staff involved, they loved expressing their art, and with Ms. DeForest help, it was more amazing than what anyone expected.  Be on the look out for the finished product because it will simply be amazing.