The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
GIFT OF ARTS
From Page 1B
It is now the Canamores' 63rd
day at the hospital, and every day
Jackie has goneto the hospital and
waited at her husband's bedside
from nine in the morning to five
in the evening. When we meet, she
sits down heavily in a wheelchair
in the hallway, with her husband
asleep in the room. She has red
hair and speaks with a folksy tone
pleasing to listen to.
"I've never seen a 64 year-old
color before," Canamore said. "But
I did, because I was so bored."
Reed pushes a cart packed
with small projects she gives
out to patients - bracelets,
pictures, coloring books. She had
given Canamore four bracelets
yesterday. Canamore made all
four bracelets, and she has since
given all four away, one to a valet
because she enjoyed watching him
with his family.
On that same floor on which
the Canamores reside, Merideth
Hume works as a unit host. Her
responsibilities include connect-
ing patients to the services offered
by the hospital, such as GOA.
"The question Mrs. Canamore
asked this morning was: 'When is
that gal coming around, you know,
with the art carts?"' Hume said.
The art cart Reed pushes
through the halls also carries
replacementsforthepicturesinthe
patient's room. She allows them to
pick out a painting they like, talks
to the patients about their choice,
giving them a history of the work
and the artist who painted it, and
she hangs the it. It's a small ges-
ture, but important nonetheless.
"I've noticed this over the years:
The artwork can make a huge dif-
ference," Hume said.
The eighth floor is dark and
somber, and in many ways,
separate from the rest of GOA's .
work. Downstairs, throughout
the corridors and waiting lobbies,
a passer-by will see evidence
of Sims's efforts hung on walls
and stood in display cases, often
with whimsical results. A clown
with fat marks of face paint doffs
his top hat. A frog carved from
wood stares mystic-eyed out
from the glass case into nothing,
skin crawling with little turtles
and frogs. Yet there is meditative
work, too, being displayed: a blue
rocking lawnchair, an oil canvas
painting of a window opening to
sunlight. Extravagant with art,
the landscape of this hospital is a
testament to GLAAH's movement
to enhance the landscape of
hospitals across the world.
Carrie McClintock, the
Communication Coordinator of
GOA, has degrees in both Fine
Arts and Performing Arts, having
studied at Rice University and the
University of Arizona.
"We've had staff tell us,"
McClintock said, "That when
they're busy, going back and forth
between differentprocedures, they
stop for a few moments, taking in
some of the art really calms them
down and makes them feel more
able to take on what's next."
She also explained that what
they do at GOA is not music and art
therapy; it's therapeutic music and
art - a distinction people often
miss.
"It's just for its own sake," she
said.
Yet there is also a sense of
solidarity in what GOA does. In
their most recent collaboration
with the University of Michigan,
GOA sought out the stories of both
patients and staff - their wishes,
hopes and dreams - which were
then written down on blue pieces
of paper and given over to School
Art & Design Prof. Anne Mondro.
She and her class then folded the
pieces of paper into round fans
- 1700 in all - into a design by
an artist named Katy Bergman
Cassell. Those stories are now
rippling 16 feet in length in the
form of a surging blue dragon. It
is called the Dragon of Wishes,
Hopes and Dreams-- a permanent
fixture in the University Hospital.
"A dragon is a symbol of trans-
formation, so it's very appropriate
for the
In t
live mt
the rot
waitin
called
March
Tracy
music1
the ma
This is
"it's
brough
Thoma
always
always
hearin
you wo
lobby."
I
t]
t]
mi
In
progra
brings
of pati.
space t
In 1
Maxw
happil
small r
set to p
from t
Transi
a nat
prepar
therap
bedsid
bedsid
from
qualifi
"Be:
high-in
hard ft
said. "A
to your
Part
hospital," McClintock said. Maxwell's job as a bedside
he hallways the sound of musician, for which MHTP
usic can be heard playing in has trained him, is being able
oms of patients, and even in to understand where a patient
globbies through a program mentally lies on the spectrum
Music While You Wait. On of health, and how to apply the
20, Jazz and R&B artist appropriate music.
Kash Thomas played her "We start based on our
for a tired group of folks in observation and our assessment,"
ain lobby of the University. he said. "From there, we are
her second time doing so. continually observing the patient.
wonderful that music is If we need to shift our music, then
t in to help with healing," we shift our music."
ts said. "And the audience is "It's amazing - the change in
so grateful, too. People are the atmosphere when a musician
just so enthusiastic about starts playing," he went on. "I'm
g live music ina place where not joking when I tell people we
tuldn't expect - in a hospital will never have too much music in
this hospital. It's just not possible.
Even with 28 volunteers (who play
in public spaces), each one playing
It's not art an hour a week, that's out of
hundredsofpotentialhoursaweek
herapyit's anywhere in this hospital, we're
still justscratchingthe surface."
herapeutic Canamore herself may be
among those just below the surface
usic and art. - amusician has yet to come to her
room.
"When I hear those musicians
when I'm going back and forth
one of their most popular to the door -- I love the music,
ins, Bedside Music, GOA especially the harp," she said.
musicians into the rooms "Sometimes when I come down
ents, a much more intimate into the Taubman Center, I'll hear
han a lobby. a piano player, they had jazz band
the GOA workroom, Greg down there one night, and it was
ell tunes his guitar where he really nice. I'm usually pretty busy,
y sits. As we spoke he played but I take a few minutes to enjoy
iffs, his fingers instinctively the music, yes."
lay. He received his training The success of GOA in Ann
he Music for Healing and Arbor feels like a blessing to Sims,
tion Program, which is whom McClintock described as
tional organization that "very instrumental in helping
es its members to play to propagate the field of arts in
eutic music at patients' healthcare." At GOA's disposal
es. It is GOA policy that all lies a vast pool of opportunity
e musicians receive training from which to draw resources and
MHTP, or an equivalent talent.
cation. "I don'tnwant to go out on a limb,
cause the hospital is a pretty but ours is probably if not the most
ntensity environment, it's extensive and varied, (then it is)
tr people to relax," Maxwell certainly one of the largest in the
And being able to relax is key country, maybe even in the world,"
healing." Sims said.
of the difficulty of Adding further to that success,
Thursday, March 27, 2014 - 3B
Dr. Robert Kelch, former executive
vice president for Medical Affairs,
reserved five million dollars in
institutional funds to match dollar
for dollar any contribution made
to GOA, an endowment that could
amount to ten million dollars total.
Perhaps most criticaltothe success
of GOA, however, is the culture of
the university itself
"We have the intellectual
climate, the people that come and
bring new ideas and new thinking
which helps to stimulate and keep
things growing and moving," Sims
said. "Sometimes,I feellike akidin
a candy shop here."
As I leave the quiet hours of the
eighth floor, and Canamorereturns
to her husband, and Reed returns
to work, I take the elevator down
to the main floor of the hospital.
I pass the exhibits and galleries
one more time. A few people stop
and peer at the paintings, some
stooping with their hands in their
pockets, and move on to the next
display. Outside in the courtyard,
where GOA hosts outdoor concerts
in the summer and spring, there is
a small garden called the Friends
Meditation Garden. In the winter,
it is chained off, covered in snow,
empty.
In the main floor lobby next to
the wall is an exhibit showcasing
an antiquated office of a doctor
from another time. It lays behind a
wall of glass. Everything inside sits
perfect, unmoving - unsettling.
Below, a short paragraph explains
how hospitals were once charity
organizations, and personal
physicians the only reliable source
of healthcare, and times were
changed. When I finish reading,
I look around at the paintings of
Black men and women draped in
African garb on the wall, the huge
mobile hanging from the ceiling. I
imagine the walls blank. I imagine
the ceiling unadorned. A hospital
without music. One must wonder
if a hospital were a form of charity,
what then would art be. I pick up
my stuff and I leave.
MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW
The Art Pop Film "G.U.Y." is
unusual for a music video, but
expectedly eccentric for Lady
Gags. The production starts
off with a gang
of business-
men in a full
out brawl over G UY
money that is LadyGaga
cluttered all Interscope
over an open
field. The cam-
era zooms in on Lady Gaga in
a bird costume that has been
struck by an arrow, and then .
depicts her struggling across
the plane.
Magically, the bird/person
somehow manages to make
it to the gates of what looks
like a modern Oz. Guards
in stylized trash bags pick
her up and parade her in a
pose that is reminiscent of a
crucifix through the vibrant
and expansive open-air palace
that lies behind the gates as
dancers shimmy around them.
Finally, the guards hand
over her body to a synchro-
nized swim team and the more
substantial music video por-
tion starts.
It definitely "heats up" from
here - Lady Gaga is displayed
in a nude pose, only cevered by
a blanket and pantyhose.-The
shoot primarily alters between
various stages - the pool at the
palace with Perez Hilton in the
sky, an Egyptian scene with an
indoor pool, a dance sequence
with the lights dimmed and
then a contrasting bright white
scene with reefs overhead. The
video closes with an inunda-
tion of men in suits exiting the
gates of the massive landscape.
On the whole, Lady Gaga's
"G.U.Y." is a wildly creative
video with an expectedly
bizarre flair. If the videoitself
doesn't impress, then the four
minutes of credits rolling for
this seven-minute video prove
how much time and effort
went into this over-the-top
production.
-KEN SALANDER
EPISODE REVIEW
TRAILER REVIEW
"Bates Motel" has never
shied away from its inherent
strangeness. When you're:a
telling the
story of a
too-close-
for-comfort Bates Motel
mother and Check-Out
son - a story
that ends A&E
with the
mother's corpse rotting in the
basement - there's no option
but to embrace the crazy. And
in that vein, "Motel" 's latest
episode, "Check-Out," does
not disappoint.
"Check-Out" is "Bates
Motel" 's most significant
reminder of its source mate-
rial. The prequel to one of
Hitchcock's most iconic
films, "Bates Motel" had con-
tinually dropped hints about
Norman's future in season
one - his blackouts, his
fascination with taxidermy.
But in "Check-Out," Norman
goes full "Psycho," assum-
If the producers of
"Insidious" and "Paranormal
Activity" have taught us
anything,
it would be
this: demonic
possession Ocuius
and creepy Relativity Media
antique objects
often go hand
in hand, and
when this dueling terror-combo
decides to raise hell, the result is
pure cinematic horror.
Abroad, wooden-framed mir-
ror is the focus of the film, as all
evil and frightgravitateswithin
its sinister control. Throughout
the centuries of the mirror's
existence, the families dwelling
in its presence have been repeat-
edly driven to criminal insanity,
as those who get possessed by its
evil embark on sudden killing-
sprees and slaughter their entire
ing Norma's personality
and attacking her estranged
brother.
The episode's climax was
one of the series' most excit-
ing moments to date. Under
John David Coles' superb
direction, "Bates Motel"
imaginatively recreated the
original film's big reveal -
butcher knife, multiple per-
sonalities and all.
A&E
Showcasing character
development, thrilling action
and Vera Farmiga and Fred-
die Highmore's equally
masterful performances,
"Check-Out" stands as a
potentially series-defining
episode - one that brought
us as close as we've ever been
to that rotting corpse in the
basement.
-ALECSTERN
families. Foryears, investigators
overlook the evil of the mirror,
that is, until a family in the pres-
ent day becomes suspicious of its
possessive powers.
Sure, "Oculus" would seem
to fulfill the quota of surprise
moments, gruesome-looking
evil figures lurking in the dark
and heart-wrenching intensity.
But the film also promises so
much more. Cleverly written
and smartly shot, it reveals a
multitude of converging themes:
historical drama, family disin-
tegration, sibling relationships,
mystery, semblances of time
travel and the good versus evil
conflict. Instead of relying on
the basic horror-movie template
to create a good scare, "Oculus"
utilizes depth of character and
a multi-faceted storyto drive
home a serious mental, emotion-
al and spiritual fright fest.
-BRIANBURLAGE
.-;
4