Gentle Arts at the hospital

By Rachel Mendell

Inquirer Edi­tor

In small, tucked-away places through­out the Galion Com­mu­nity Hos-pital, inside and out, are areas of reflec­tion and beauty. With the new hos­pi­tal addi­tion and entry­way a few years ago a self-perpetuating brook was con­structed out­side and to the left of the front entrance. Step­ping down the walk­way the noise of traf­fic dis­ap­pears as the gur­gling of the water­way gets louder.

Inside the entry and into the lobby are benches for rest­ing, couches for read­ing and wait­ing, an inside water­fall to the left, a pre­sen­ta­tion of art to the right, and a two-story solar­ium in which a vis­i­tor can stand in the mid­dle and look up to see more win­dows, plants and more peace­ful space.

Other quiet places for reflec­tion inside are wait­ing areas, prayer areas and con­sul­ta­tion areas.

Back out­side, as the vis­i­tor walks to the right of the entrance, is a small quiet alcove titled “Memo­r­ial Gar­den.” Three sculp­tures rep­re­sent the three parts of human exis­tence dis­played with spe­cial plant­i­ngs and stonework: mind, body, spirit. Three artists were com­mis­sioned for this tran­quil area: Ken Arthur, Priscilla Roggen-kamp and Keith McMa­hon. Arthur is a maker of sculp­tures from objects that inter­sect with his life. His boxes and neck­laces all call on the phys­i­cal to evoke the spir­i­tual. Keith is a sculp­tor of stone and metal forms that con­nect to nature and time. He cre­ates sculp­tural pan­els that merge a tac­tile sur­face with ele­ments of time and mem­ory. Pri­cilla is a maker of tex­tured pan­els that recall places both topo­graph­i­cally and meta­phys­i­cally and include the wrap and weft of time in their fab­ric ele­ments. Her sculp­tures of fab­ric, clay and stone make ref­er­ence to the body and nature. The gar­den was cre­ated in mem­ory of John Imhoff and Dr Theodore Ebner, two indi­vid­u­als who helped to shape what the hos­pi­tal is today.

The newest artis­tic ven­ture for the enjoy­ment of hos­pi­tal staff, patrons, vis­i­tors and guests is the lobby art exhibit. So far three artists have shown their work: Diane Bell, Carol Kable and, still on dis­play, Melissa Taylor.

Diane Bell was asked to show her art­work, but real­ized the hos­pi­tal needed a hang­ing sys­tem so all sizes could be dis­played with­out mak­ing extra holes in the walls. She found a good deal on a sys­tem and donated it to the hos­pi­tal so that future artists could also use it.

Bell works in acrylic, water­color and col­ored pen­cil. She began her artis­tic career with art lessons in Kinder­garten, which were taught by Wit­ten­berg art stu­dents. She grad­u­ated from Bowl­ing Green and became the Galion ele­men­tary art teach­ing, teach­ing in all five ele­men­tary build­ings. She then moved on to Wyn­ford High School where she taught for 19 years and retired. She now vol­un­teers for the Girl Scouts and helps with Girl Scout Camp every year.

Bell has worked a long time in real­ism and is now phas­ing into abstract. She does not do com­mis­sions, she said, “I do art that suits me. I do the art that pleases me.” Though she is hes­i­tant to sell her art, giv­ing much of what she does away as gifts, she did sell one piece dur­ing her show­ing this past December.

Carol Kable showed her work in March and April. Kable was inter­ested in visual art since she was five years old. Born and raised in Bucyrus, Kable had the same art instruc­tor for pri­vate lessons through her senior year. She attended OSU Colum­bus for her degree in Art Edu­ca­tion and spent 32 years teach­ing ele­men­tary level school art in the Galion City School dis­trict. Kable also worked at the Girl Scout Camp Wal­hond­ing in Loudonville.

“I have had lots of oppor­tu­ni­ties to use my art abil­i­ties,” said Carol, “from paint­ing murals on walls, design­ing books, illus­trat­ing a hos­pi­tal aux­il­iary cook­book, paint­ing art­work for the Come Home to Galion art cal­en­dar projects and pri­vate com­mis­sions.” She has had a “mul­ti­tude of diver­si­fied projects.” She is on the dec­o­rat­ing com­mit­tee for any group she is asso­ci­ated with.

Kable espe­cially likes to do pet por­trait com­mis­sions. While she sells her work occa­sion­ally she enjoyed know­ing that peo­ple have got­ten to see her work rather than her pieces sit­ting in her art studio.

“I always am look­ing for new ideas to paint and ways to do it,” said Kable. “In fact, I have way too many ideas and seem­ingly not enough time in the day to exe­cute them.” Kable has lots of club activ­i­ties so time is tight. She is heav­ily involved in the Brush and Pal­lette Art Club and helps with their publicity.

Projects Kable is cur­rently work­ing on are a homeschooler’s art man­ual, a series of paint­ings about the his­tor­i­cal build­ings of Galion and a water­color course for adults.

In May the art­work of Melissa Tay­lor went on dis­play. Taylor’s older sis­ter was an artist (in cal­lig­ra­phy) and she fol­lowed in her foot­steps. Tay­lor grad­u­ated from Mans­field Chris­t­ian and took art lessons from Mal­abar High School. She received her asso­ciates degree from the Art Insti­tute of Pitts­burgh fol­lowed by work at the Colum­bus School of Art and Design. She is mar­ried to Mike Tay­lor, a 1984 GHS graduate.

Among her dif­fer­ent art jobs she has painted many murals – com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial; gath­ered and built the­atri­cal props; sewn and fab­ri­cated cos­tumes; designed T-shirts; made point-of-purchase and show dis­plays for Bor­den; designed logos and brochures; framed pic­tures; and painted and drawn fine art.

Tay­lor has a long list of murals done for pri­vate homes as well as busi­nesses on com­mis­sion in Colum­bus such as Mon­tego Bay and the Bor­den Build­ing. At the Pita Hut Restau­rant she cre­ated Mid­dle East­ern scenes. She painted the walls of an indoor swim­ming pool room to look like Ireland.

She loves oils, but uses acrylics more. Col­ored pen­cil is another favorite medium. Light and color fas­ci­nate her. Art is her way of say­ing, “Stop! Look at what is all around you. Beauty is everywhere.”

Tay­lor loves work­ing in all medi­ums. She works in Pho­to­shop, oil, pas­tel, acrylic, pen­cil, and enjoys what each medium brings to the work. She hates get­ting bored and loves pri­vate teach­ing. She has done work in New York, Cincin­nati and Marysville.

Tay­lor would like to do more com­mis­sioned murals and por­traits. She likes to write as well, includ­ing plays and skits.

Tay­lor com­ments that she mar­ried a chef so, “No more starv­ing artist.”

The next artist to show in the Galion Com­mu­nity Hos­pi­tal Lobby will be Bue­lah Montgomery.