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SANFORD CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL

Sioux Falls South Dakota

These collages were commissioned for a new children's hospital designed around a poem that was created especially for the hospital. The poem told about the five "lands" of the hospital (essentially the five floors) and participating artists were asked to include specific elements that had already been decided upon for the building's architecture. The jester frog is balancing a real folded origami frog, the flowers in the raccoon's bouquet are the South Dakota state flower, the eyes of the stuffed animals in the "Friends" piece are real buttons sewn onto the paper,  the toad's paintbrush is a cut-out photograph of my actual paintbrush, the veils on the princess hats are made of semi-transparent rice paper, and the odd hats seen on critters are based on little icons of the hats that were used throughout the hospital to identify different specialty areas (lab, radiology, etc.). The scrolling greenery in the bouquet/background, and around the portrait painter's feet and easel are taken from actual wallpaper patterns in several halls of the hospital.  

The Jester Frogs and Lady Sunfish and the Toad Portrait Painter (the orange spotted sunfish is one of SD's native fish) are for the "Deep Blue Waters" floor of the hospital.   Friends (bear, turtle and otter- all SD natives) and Lady Raquel with Pasque Flowers are for the "Rushing River Valley"  floor. I went with the lushness of the river valley concept, along with the idea of animals congregating by the water, rather than focusing on the water itself.

I hope they are fun for kids and parents and staff to look at as well as tell stories about what is happening with the characters.