`ART FOR THE HEALTH OF IT'

"Remembrances," a collage by Pat Fabrick of Cape Girardeau

"Art for the Health of It," a show of two-dimensional art that opens Sunday in Southeast Missouri Hospital Surgical Waiting Area, is not just an art exhibit. It's part of a larger effort to make the hospital a nicer place.

Hospitals have for too long been designed to be sterile, unfeeling structures, said Jeff Krantz, assistant administrator at Southeast Hospital.

"There are a number of articles that suggest that the health-care environs impact on the stay and successful healing of patients," Krantz said. He said the hospital is trying to change its color scheme to those that are attractive and functional for the maintenance and housekeeping.

"The arts can enhance the quality of life for all individuals," said Donna Pikey, a spokeswoman for the hospital. The exhibit is "designed to support that part of us that medicine and surgery cannot touch."

Krantz and Pikey belong to the hospital's beautification committee. After finding out about a similar program at Heartland Health System, two hospitals in St. Joseph, the committee three years ago started working on bringing original art works into the hospital.

Now, working with the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri, the hospital sponsors two "Art for the Health of It" shows a year.

The council invites artists to submit their work with a $5 fee to cover costs. A committee selects the works and awards prizes to the best of show and best oil/acrylic, best watercolor, best photograph and best other media.

If Picasso were to submit a work, it wouldn't be "Guernica."

"We select works that are not depressing," said Bev Strohmeyer, executive director of the arts council. Instead, she looks for works that are "upbeat or uplifiting."

After all, the paintings will be in a waiting room where people bide their time while a loved one is in surgery. "It's pretty depressing just to sit and wait in the hospital," said Jane Grimm, a hospital trustee and member of the beautification committee. "We thought this would be a good diversion."

When the show is on, the patients' loved ones aren't the only ones in the waiting room. "People come down to look at it all the time," Pikey said. "Employees come down. Visitors and patients."

It is even OK for people to visit the hospital just to see the art.

But uplifting doesn't necessarily mean dull. Artists display works at the shows that might raise some eyebrows.

For example, Lee Spalt, a retired psychiatrist who lives in Cobden, Ill., submitted a work with rows of cut twigs mounted perpendicular to the canvas surrounded a mangled circuit board.

"I like for people to look at things and to find some things they wouldn't expect," Spalt said.

Spalt has won two best of show awards at "Art for the Health of It" shows here. He has shown his works in other hospitals as well, even having his own show at Bethesda Hospital in St. Louis.

Grimm said hospital art is not limited to the show. The mural in the hospital lobby and performances by musicians from Southeast Missouri State University soften the atmosphere as well.

Grimm said the hospital is considering other shows as well --children's art, art by employees, art by physicians.

"When people come into a hospital, it's a scary type thing," Spalt said. "Anything that can make that more comfortable is worthwhile."