CSUDH Students and Alumni Recognized for Mural Project at Watts Health Center

On Feb. 6, student and alumni artists from California State University, Dominguez Hills were recognized by executives, physicians and staff at the Watts Health Center (WHC) in appreciation for their yearlong project of creating murals to brighten reception areas in the facility’s pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology departments. The murals, “A Day at the Beach” and “Bridge of Life” were completed and installed last semester.

William Hobson, Jr., president and CEO, Watts Healthcare Corporation, noted that CSU Dominguez Hills is “a part of our extended family of organizations collaborating with us in our efforts to improve health care in the community.”

“Art is healing,” said Hobson to the assembled guests, which included the artists, faculty and administrators from the university, and professor of art Gilah Yelin Hirsch, who led the project with WHC’s Patricia Brown. “I think that’s why art has been prioritized by people since the beginning of time. Your murals have really contributed to increasing what I feel is the hospitality quotient... that we think is so important in a facility dedicated to providing health care services.”

The team of artists included Diana Adams, Nicole Adams, Chris Avery, Maria Bjorkhdahl, Edith Asker Chipman, Sonya Edmonds, Gearhart, Abdallah Ibrahim, Mai Iwase, Andre Jackson, Phyllis Quinn, Cordella and Larry Raymond, Dennis Sylvester, Louise Wain and Andrew Wokabi. Assisting them in the installation were Chipman’s husband, Wayne and Edmonds’ husband, Kent; Bryant Crook and Jorge Madrigal of the WHC Foundation Facilities Management Department; and Robin Wilkes, instructional aid technician, art department, CSU Dominguez Hills. Mario Congreve, staff producer for the university’s distance learning department, volunteered throughout the project to produce a video documentary, assisted by digital media arts student Calvin Ko. Their YouTube clip can be viewed by clicking here.

Patricia Brown, WHC’s patient services representative, contacted Hirsch in the fall of 2007 to see if a collaboration between the facility and Cal State Dominguez Hills was possible.

“It was almost scary the way things fell in line so nicely,” Brown said. “I wondered what would happen if we merged our community with the university community and got together with some art students to get some art on the walls here. I called the art department and I was referred to Gilah. We’ve become friends since then. And they’re family now... not just my family, but part of the family of the Watts Health Center.”

“When Pat called me about the possibility of having [student-created murals] in the Watts Health Center, we each recognized a soul mate in each other,” said Hirsch. “Although I didn’t have the time to do this myself, I suggested that I talk with students to see if anyone was interested in working together outside of class on a volunteer basis. I presented the ideas and the opportunity to provide art where people... can benefit from the healing power of art when they are ill and anxious.”

Hirsch was amazed at the response she got from her current and former students, who were eager to take on the project despite their busy schedules. The group represented the diversity of Dominguez Hills’ student population with a variety of ethnicities, ages and religions. She commended them for “letting go of the legendary artist’s ego to collaborate and work together for the common good.”

The group approached the project as professionals, according to Hirsch, and learned to work collaboratively through every phase of it, including discussing goals and parameters of the mural’s content with members of the WHC staff and local community, gathering the appropriate materials, collectively and individually brainstorming, and finally, combining their sketches to form one cohesive image for each mural.

“For the artists, the mural project was not just a charitable act, but a life-changing experience,” she noted with pride. “Instead of ‘me, me, me,’ it became, ‘we, we, us.’”

The infectious spirit of the project resulted in the acquisition of needed supplies for the murals through donations. National companies including Pearl Artists and Craft Company, Golden Artists Colors, Inc., Home Depot, Office Depot and Lowe’s Home Improvement were corporate sponsors. Local businesses Vargas Specialties and Jones Lumber Company in Lynwood, and WHC’s Dana Knoll and Brown contributed the rest of the materials.

Hirsch says that as the murals developed over the months, members of the campus community were drawn into the painting studio in LaCorte Hall out of curiosity.

“The sense of joy, satisfaction, and accomplishment, was positively viral,” she said. “People began to drop in and watch the progress [of the murals]. Some even picked up a paintbrush for the first time in their lives and joined in the communal effort.”

Among one of these was Georgia Moten, an English literature major at Dominguez Hills. Her experience working alongside the muralists inspired her to write “A Most Exquisite Endeavor” for the university’s student newspaper, The Bulletin. For a pdf of the publication, click here.

“I was personally welcomed into the project by Dr. Gilah Hirsch, who explained the scope of the project to me and made me feel like an important person even though she did not know me,” she says. “I have been part of the arts community for a long time and have tried various arts projects on my own, so when she put the brush into my hand, it felt ...like a moment in time that was waiting to happen. But I suppose what really [got me to] that moment was the fact that I was with all the other artists, and their support and intensity drew me in. I wanted to be one of them.”

Moten, who has been a longtime participant in activities at the Watts Towers Arts Center was curious about the muralists because of their contribution to a community she loved.

“A great deal of our student population comes for the Watts and Willowbrook area,” she says. “When I found out that the artists were doing this project... I knew that it was a story worth telling. I wanted to be involved [and] be the one to tell the story, especially since this would also give me a chance to show school support for my alma mater.”

A new group of 14 students, including several of the original group, are enrolled in a new mural class being taught by Hirsch this semester, and are already at work creating a mural for the WHC’s radiology department’s waiting area.

“When they were doing the unofficial dedication [of the murals], I just happened to walk over there,” said Dr. James Johnson, chief of radiology. “As soon as I saw the effort, I decided, ‘I need one of those in radiology.’ Some new colors and life in there can only be good for our patients.”

The healing effects of the murals have already become evident, according to Dr. Deirdre Logan, chief of obstetrics and gynecology.

“I’m not really an art person, but I know that art does have healing powers,” she said. “The first day that the patients walked in [after the murals were hung], they were in amazement and awe. I think that it has had a calming effect on the patients. Sometimes they get a little irate and we haven’t had any of that since.”

Studio art major Andrew Wokabi says that although he has done a lot of volunteer work and teaches Sunday school at his church, the mural project was special in that it gives the children of Watts something to hope for and aspire to with “A Day at the Beach,” which graces the pediatrics reception area.

“This is a chance to work with kids and to share with them,” he says of the murals that were designed to uplift and encourage their young viewers. “I know some of them have never been to the beach, we hope that [the mural] will take them there. When we have a chance to do not only art, but healing art, a project like this takes us to a whole other level.”

Another painting student, Sonya Edmonds, is looking forward to working on the mural for the WHC’s radiology department.

“I’m doing the next one so I can be part of another art creation for the people here in Watts,” she said. “It’s a great feeling to have been able to bring something special to this community and just give back.”

Hirsch, a renowned expert on the relationship between art and healing, has been a core member and frequent presenter at events such as the Council Grove Conference on Consciousness and is a member of the board of directors of the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine.

“It has been a great privilege for me to work with Pat and the artists and absolutely thrilling to see the [murals] installed to become part of everyday life,” she said. “Everyone can feel and appreciate goodness, and when is in a visual form, it is all the more infectious. This project has been a microcosm of what high-minded social action can be. Imagine a world in which this kind of collaboration and gathering of communal talent would be pervasive.”

- Joanie Harmon

Photos above: A diverse group of Dominguez Hills students and alumni volunteered their time and talents to create murals for the Watts Health Center. Back row, L-R: Robin Wilkes, instructional aid technician, CSUDH Art Department; Gilah Yelin Hirsch, professor of art; Dennis Sylvester, Louise Wain, and Phyllis Quinn. Front row, L-R : Sonya Edmonds , Andre Jackson , Maria Bjorkdahl, and Abdallah Ibrahim

Dr. Oliver Brooks, chief of pediatrics at the Watts Health Center, shares how the mural, "A Day at the Beach," has impacted his young patients.

CSUDH student Georgia Moten and Patricia Brown (at right), facility patient services representative,
Watts Health Center, present plaques inscribed with poetry by Moten that was inspired by her participation in the mural project and that will be displayed near the paintings.

Photos by Joanie Harmon