By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium
Seattle’s Harborview healthcare staff, particularly those in the ICU, face continued and unprecedented chronic stress from the combined effects of the pandemic, housing emergency, and fentanyl crisis. To offer a path to well-being, the ArtHeals program at Harborview Medical Center (HMC), produced by retired physician, art curator, and photographer Judith Rayl, brings visual art into their workplace. The latest artist to be featured in the ArtHeals exhibition features the amazing work of photographer Jim Coley.
Originally from Arkansas, Coley moved to the Puget Sound region in the mid-sixties and grew up in Tacoma. With a deep passion for photography, Coley enjoys capturing a wide range of subjects. He worked for Boeing for 40 years, primarily shooting images for the company from 1972 to 2008. Coley is married to Tricia Coley, an art curator and founder of the Lavina Global Gallery in Seattle, and together they have established strong roots in the Pacific Northwest.
“The exhibition program is called ArtHeals,” says Rayl. “How this happened is, I am a retired UW-trained physician and now I am an artist and curator. I have very deep connections with Harborview Medical Center. The people, the place, everything. The mission of caring for the most vulnerable people in our region.”
“In 2021, during the COVID pandemic, there was a triple crisis going on,” continued Rayl. “There was COVID, there was the housing crisis, there was the fentanyl emergency that was escalating, staff under an unprecedented amount of stress, and so what could I do? I am a retired physician, and I couldn’t go over and help as a doctor, so I thought I could bring art.”
Research suggests that art can have powerful healing properties, and the idea of art as medicine dates back to ancient times. Art can help people connect their mind and body, feel grounded, and navigate disease. It can also improve emotional well-being, enhance positive mood, and boost self-confidence and self-perception.
Through art therapy, one can gain a deeper understanding of their emotions, learning coping mechanisms, and develop resilience. The complementary nature of art and therapy allows for a holistic approach to trauma recovery, addressing both the emotional and cognitive aspects of healing.
Coley’s exhibition at Harborview revolves around the innocence of children and how their presence can bring a sense of peace and reality to the stressful environment of the ICU.
“I am privileged to have both a professional and personal view of photographer Jim Coley’s life and artistic works,” says his wife, Tricia. “Jim is an artist/photographer who heals. He has an unprecedented ability, as a photographer, to capture and center our shared human experiences.”
“This group of photographs, when Judith approached me about doing this, we thought about it and thought children would be a good fit for this program,” she added. “It was important to me because I had an opportunity to share in an area of the hospital and as I thought about it, children are not threatening to anyone, so I think that is why I chose children for this particular project.”
Coley’s photographs are technically exquisite, with strong use of diagonals, horizontals, light, and movement, creating complex and beautiful images. Both Rayl and Coley believed it was crucial to hang these images in the ICU to provide a healing peace for the staff under immense stress.
Erin Carrier, Nurse Manager of the medical cardiac/ICU at Harborview Medical Center, agrees that the program has brought joy to a place where nurses and doctors often face a dark and stressful environment.
“This is a staff-focused art installation, and it is really a little bit of joy and levity in a place that is very dark. We take care of some really, really sick individuals, and so to have a moment to be able to step away, and to go and see something that is reminiscent of joy and resilience has been very good for the staff,” says Carrier. “I think this is important and it works. Hospitals are really devastating places and things that my staff sees every day most people don’t have to deal with ever, thankfully. Just to have this moment that kind of brings you back to reality, there are joyous things like in the world and to have a little bit of that in the unit every day is a reminder that there are horrible things in the world and we take care of extremely ill patients, there is death, but this is a reminder that there is joy and life and through this art my staff gets a little bit of that every day.”
Rayl’s exhibitions not only address healing and resilience but also inclusivity, as the majority of the artists she works with come from “historically excluded groups”.
“All artists are artists from historically excluded groups and this is important to me,” says Rayl. “This (the ArtHeals Program) centers entirely on healing and inclusion—that is who I am. Bringing art from artists who are very underrecognized in our community to our very diverse staff at Harborview is my goal. And by doing that, by building an atmosphere of healing, resilience, inspiration, and joy when they are under stress. So that is why we are here tonight.”
Jim Coley’s exhibition, with its focus on the innocence and joy of children, serves as a beacon of hope and resilience for the ICU staff at Harborview Medical Center. His ability to capture and convey profound human experiences through his photography brings a much-needed sense of peace and healing to those who tirelessly care for the most vulnerable in our community.