Last spring a request from the director of a nonprofit, skilled nursing facility piqued Associate Professor Collin Bradford’s interest as an incredible learning opportunity for the students in his Interdisciplinary Projects class. The director had inquired about student work for the memory care wing at the facility, and although the original request was vague—“we have some empty walls we’d like to put some art on”—Bradford saw an opportunity for serious research about neurology and care for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia.

When Bradford responded to Tyler Orton, director of Alpine Valley Care Center in Pleasant Grove, he explained the range of work Art Department students make and shared examples of contemporary artists whose work is displayed in medical facilities.

“Our work would center around the patients, but I can’t tell you right now what the students will decide to do,” Bradford told Orton. Orton accepted this open process, and Bradford’s class devoted nearly half of the semester to the project.

The Challenge of Public Art

In order to simulate the reality of creating public art as effectively as possible, Bradford approached the Alpine Valley project as another collaborator, directing the students only when necessary. He wanted his students to experience making art outside the safety of the classroom. “It’s a big risk,” he said, “but also the only way for students to learn to be artists in public.”

Perhaps the biggest challenge students faced was how to make art that fulfilled the needs of the center and was also meaningful to them. Such art would be both rigorous and inclusive. “I still don’t know if this is possible,” Bradford said early in the process.

Collaboration for a Cause

The students were tasked with installing art in a large hallway winged by patients’ rooms. Walls of varying lengths connected the room doors on both sides and bore the signs of past attempts to mitigate the institutional feel of the hallway, including mirrors, ornate trim and a false log cabin exterior. The class wanted to create an environment that would help patients feel calmer and happier. As they worked toward this goal, the students returned often to one question: What do the patients need?

Most participating students had not previously collaborated on a project of this scope. The students not only collaborated with each other as artists, but also with a contractor and the Alpine Valley administrators.

Senior Ellie Goldrup described how the groups worked together through many iterations of the project. “It was a big process of us all formulating our own visions and then coming together and compromising in some ways,” Goldrup said. “Then once we’d have a vision as a class, we’d have to change things for people outside of our classroom.”

The various iterations Goldrup described were guided by significant research completed by the students. Each of them became experts on topics such as the first-person experience of people with dementia and Alzheimer’s, the experience of their loved ones and their caregivers, and the effects of environmental factors on the well-being of patients. In this research, they consulted faculty and librarians at BYU, as well as literature from medical journals and professional organizations.

The Final Product

A recurring theme in the research was the healing effect of nature. Patients who view nature directly or through images experience reduced pain and a greater sense of optimism. Since patients at Alpine Valley don’t have direct access to nature, Bradford’s class wanted to provide a sense of nature through their work.

Through research, the class also found that the tactile sense persists in many patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s after their other senses have dulled, and that tactile stimulation has been shown to improve both well-being and care outcomes. Furthermore, because many memory patients experience restlessness, they frequently pass back and forth in the hallway between their rooms.

Ultimately, the students chose a project that would incorporate both images of nature and tactile stimulation in order to provide the greatest benefit to patients, staff, and family members.

The focus of their final project is a series of ten large-scale photographs accompanied by eight textural sensory stimulation panels. The photographs vary from vast landscape images of the Great Salt Lake to close-ups of plants. The sensory stimulation panels integrate elements of the photographs they hang beside, and incorporate materials like stone, wood, tile and acrylic. Every person in the class participated in the art-making, and some learned new skills along the way.

Bradford and his students also made changes to simplify the architecture in the hallway to enhance the beneficial elements of the nature images and the sensory stimulation panels.

Site-Specific Art

Creating artwork for a specific community was new territory for many of Bradford’s students. Most of the time, in order to produce their best, most meaningful artwork, students try not to worry about how others will perceive their work. In contrast, the Alpine Valley project required significant sensitivity to their viewers and how they might respond.

For art student Steven Stallings, this installation was both conceptually and compositionally unlike any of his personal work. Most of Stallings’ art focuses on his personal identity and is colorful, with many pieces. He said the collaboration helped him try to find ways to incorporate his voice into something he never would have considered making himself. “It was a struggle because it felt like it wasn’t my work even though I was a part of it,” he said.

Similarly, Goldrup felt that her work would lose sincerity if she was making it for other people, but learned it was possible to maintain her integrity as an artist while serving others. “In doing as much research as possible, and doing our best to be as informed as possible—that was where the integrity came in,” Goldrup said.

Impact on the Patients

Since Bradford’s class completed the project, Orton and several staff members reported that the artwork is engaging the memory patients as intended. In the evenings, as sundown causes the patients to restlessly wander the hallways, they often stop at one of the sensory panels to experience its texture. Staff members have also incorporated engaging with the work into their interactions with patients.

The art project at the Alpine Valley Care Center was made possible by a generous experiential learning grant. For more information about the university’s experiential learning initiative, see President Worthen’s Inspiring Learning address.