Texas Children’s Hospital Mural Project and Workshops
Wouldn’t it be pleasing to create a large mural on selected walls of the Texas Children’s Hospital, inspired by the art work of children the patients, to provide them hope and happiness? A work of art that would be seen by thousands of people each year and that was created through the eyes of a child?
This project is a collaboration between the Texan-French Alliance for the Arts, Eyeful Art Murals & Designs, Little Wonders Learning Center, and the Texas Children’s Hospital. Each partner brings to the project a unique perspective and methodology that broadens the participants’ experience. This project aims to provide a platform for children to overcome the many challenges they face during their hospital stay. Our workshops allow them to express themselves creatively, so that they can realize their full potential through engagement with the arts and different cultures.
Our creative workshops began in September 2015 at Texas Children’s Hospital. Throughout the program, we collected and documented over 200 unique pieces of art created by the children. At the end of this program, Sebastien “Mr.D” Boileau, in collaboration with the Texan-French Alliance’s and Little Wonders’ teams, will curate the selection of artworks and propose the overall “layout” that will include the many designs created by the kids. Our team will then use this layout of the children’s original designs to create a large-scale mural in the highly visible valet parking garage of Texas Children’s Hospital.
Through this project, we also plan to create a bridge between children who are hospitalized in Texas (USA) and in Nice (France), proposing a dialogue between the pediatric patients of the two countries. Through workshops and exchanges, they will be invited to share their vision for the mural’s final design: hope for their future, the importance of friendship, their appreciation of health and wellness, their gratitude for the support received from family, friends and hospital staff, etc.
The vision of this project grew from Sebastien Boileau’s (Eyeful Arts’s founder and CEO) encounter with his friend’s 9-year-old son who needed heart surgery for a congenital heart defect. The boy was given a canvas and markers to keep his mind occupied throughout the recovery process. When Sebastien visited the little boy, it was difficult to ignore the view from his window: a bare high-rise wall. When the time came for the nurse to remove his tubes, she told him to look away. He looked outside, staring at the blank wall like many other children probably do. There was nothing colorful or aesthetically pleasing to distract him from his situation. Children often stay in hospitals for long periods of time, gazing out of windows with such barren views. We hope to use the healing power of art to positively transform the lives of many hospitalized children.
Please visit https://issuu.com/johnbernhard/docs/arthouston_magazine2 to read an article in ArtHouston Magazine about this program (“Healing Arts” pages 68-69).