KAILUA-KONA — At West Hawaii Community Health Center, a dose of art is part of the prescription for patients and visitors.
“Art is healing for the individual artist as well as for the people that look and observe and interact with the art,” said Richard Taaffe, CEO of WHCHC.
On Friday, the health center’s Kealakehe campus hosted the fifth annual Art is Healing Juried Exhibition. A collaborative effort between WHCHC and the Donkey Mill Art Center, the exhibition featured local artists and their artwork centered on the theme of nature and how it inspires artists to create work that’s healing.
Taaffe was inspired to create the event shortly after the Kealakehe center opened.
“This was a new facility and we needed to bring some life to it and we needed to create a space where people felt comfortable, where there could be healing and they could be cared for,” Taaffe said. “And what better way to do that than through art? And particularly local art.”
Taaffe said he didn’t want to ask local artists to donate their art. Instead, he wanted to create a process where the artists’ work is displayed, and both the artist and health center reap the benefits of the exhibition.
The artists placed a price on their works that were selected for this year’s exhibition, and event attendees were able to purchase the art Friday night. Half of the purchase price goes to the artist and the other half goes to WHCHC — and the purchaser can write it off as a tax deduction.
“I wanted to make it a win-win-win,” Taaffe said. “A win for the health center, a win for the artist and a win for the people purchasing the art.”
The art that is purchased is kept by WHCHC to be placed in its facilities across West Hawaii.
“This is the fifth year and we have about 70 pieces from the previous years and they’re in all of our facilities, and they represent the local community,” Taaffe said. “It just contributes significantly to the ambiance and the setting within all of our facilities. People can link and feel connected to the art.”
Jurors Miho Morinoue and Gerald Lucena helped hand select 30 pieces from the almost 90 pieces submitted for the exhibition.
“The range was amazing and what I realized was the range was people with different experiences, backgrounds, techniques, styles, stories,” Morinoue said. “And so to actually have to look at every single piece and from there look at the whole exhibition, it was really difficult.”
Four pieces of art by local artists Joseph Ruesing, Patricia Uehara, Cris Lindborg and Lynn Capell were selected for the Jurors’ Choice Awards by Morinoue and Lucena.
Capell said the painting that was selected was created outside in a matter of a few hours, and that artistic process is mentally healing for her.
“In that time I lose all thought of anything,” Capell said. “It just becomes about a total immersive process of smell, sight, everything. And it’s amazing.”