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Dayton Children’s partners with DVAC for public art

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By Dave Larsen, Staff Writer Updated 12:44 AM Sunday, October 17, 2010

DAYTON — The sock monkeys, painted skateboards and colorful origami that adorn the walls of the expanded emergency department at Children’s Medical Center of Dayton bring smiles to the faces of young patients and local artists alike.

The artwork is part of an $82,000 public art project in partnership with the Dayton Visual Arts Center, one of the region’s leading artists’ organizations with gallery space at 118 N. Jefferson St. in Dayton.

“It’s important if you want to be in the (art) world to try to get work placed in collections,” said Jane Black, DVAC’s executive director. “This is a major placement for a lot of people.”

The project features work by more than 10 Dayton-area artists and photographers. About 40 pieces from the project’s first phase were installed in April. An additional 35 pieces are being created for the second phase and will be installed in December and April 2011, Black said.

“It’s very validating to your career,” said Jessica Roller, a Dayton painter who is part of the project. “Somebody wants (your art) in their public facility permanently; it’s not just going in a private home,” she said.

Roller is working with four area youths, ages 9-14, to create art for the hospital unit in collaboration with A Kid Again, a nonprofit that provides fun group activities for children with life-threatening illnesses and their families.

Bryan Suddith, executive director of A Kid Again’s Greater Dayton chapter, was approached by Black about the project. “We discussed how neat it would be to see kids who have experienced Children’s in the best and worst ways to express those experiences in art,” Suddith said.

Three of the participating children, Kyle, MacKenna and Cheyenna Britch of Kettering, are siblings with the same heart disease. The fourth, Jonathan Schwartz of Fairborn, fought leukemia that is now in remission.

“We’re excited to see the pictures hang there,” said Joy Schwartz, his mother.

Their artwork is modeled after Roller’s colorful, primitive depictions of animals, which Black likened to “pop-art cave paintings.”

“I’m taking them through the same process that I go through when I make a piece of art,” Roller said.

Suddith hoped other kids will see their artwork and “know that someone else has been where they are, and can find some comfort from that in their experience,” he said.

Dayton Children’s emergency department saw more than 66,000 patients last year, said Cindy Burger, the hospital’s director of Critical Care Services.

“All these kids, all these parents are exposed to the work of the Dayton Visual Arts Center,” which gives the unit a personality it didn’t have, Burger said.

The renovated Soin Pediatric Trauma and Emergency Center, which opens in stages through April 2011, will double in size and include a digital radiology room. The cost of the artwork represents one percent of the total $8.2 million budget, Burger said.

Dayton Children’s kept the project affordable by selecting emerging artists, “many of whom are at a really reasonable price point,” Black said. The hospital previously purchased DVAC artwork for its Springboro facility and two of its pediatric units, she said.

DVAC has sold art to Wright State University and Kettering Medical Center, among other clients, “but this is by far the largest project and the most public, and certainly the first that has been engaging a lot of artists to work as a group,” Black said.

The artists designed their artwork with the emergency unit’s architecture, color schemes and fabrics in mind.

“It’s very kid-friendly,” said Betsy Woods, a hospital spokeswoman. “We’ve had a lot of people say it looks more like a children’s museum than it does an actual emergency room.”

The project meets DVAC’s mission, which is art for the community and a community for artists, Black said. It also provides the organization with a revenue stream. However, the true reward might be on a deeper level.

“You look around and you see the families who are really enduring some hard times, and you see a little kid looking at sock monkeys and smiling,” Black said. “It makes you feel good. It makes you feel like you did something right,” she said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2419 or dlarsen@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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