In 1980, after almost 10 years in nursing and health-care administration, my career focus shifted to writing, painting, and the healing arts. Published credits include Family Circle, Ladies’ Home Journal, and other national magazines, as well as an original collection of fables entitled The Gold Key in the Mahogany Box (1992, Putnam Berkley Publishing). The fables were the focus of lectures and workshops on “compassionate conversation” that I presented throughout the US and in South America.

As my painting career continued to evolve, original works of art were commissioned by various health-care, commercial, and residential clients throughout the country. In 1997, I attended a conference on Art, Architecture and the Creation of Sacred Space at the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio. This conference was a turning point for my career, as both an artist and a nurse, when I was introduced to the burgeoning field of art and healing. This turning point provided an avenue for me to further integrate my background and experience in health care with my focus in the arts and their impact on the human condition.

Soon after the conference I was invited by a health-care architect to explore the potential of replicating the images of my original works of art (as an alternative to the more often used photographic imagery) for use in backlit ceiling and wall installations, initially in diagnostic and treatment radiology suites. As the use of the backlit Images began to take hold, a better understanding of my work and its impact was recognized and acknowledged. Over time, it became clear to those providing care in these settings that the images not only provided a visual respite and a sense of safety and balance for the patients against the backdrop of the highly technical clinical spaces in which they were placed: equally, my images provided a calming and soothing visceral experience for the viewer as well. Pediatric and adult patients, including those from varied cultural and ethnic backgrounds, have been similarly impacted.

In the past two decades, as advances in printing methodologies and image management techniques continued to evolve, I developed multiple partnerships with printing companies offering a variety of fabrication methods, and worked with graphic designers to create complex and intricate layouts from my original works of art. In time, additional working relationships with architectural firms, lighting companies, hospital facility departments, and general contractors evolved. However, it was the long-term working relationships with art consultants specializing in procuring art specifically for health-care settings, hospital and department administrators, nurses, and child life specialists that provided the opportunity for the greatest impact in the use and placement of the replicated images of my paintings.