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Community Arts: Arts in Healthcare Settings

I haven't been here for a while, - because..


I've  taken on a short (ish) Post Grad Course in Arts in Healthcare Settings in NUI Maynooth, and as its been tasking my hitherto " more relaxed" brain..I've been to concentrating my energies on finding my way around reading lists, library cards, books, papers and all the paraphanalia that seems to accompany a Post Grad Course..


"Vessel"
Photo of curious window, I have always had a thing about windows and doors.

A wonderful group of 15 women..all doing this course for various, and very various personal reasons. We have to put our heads down and together - down lowww, until the end of May.
All are artists, - dancers, poets, writers, musicians, and visual artists, who are in some way involved in the area of introducing arts ( not as in art therapy, which has a more clinical role) into hospitals, nursing homes, community centres , rehabilitation centres and lots more in Ireland today.
This area of arts for arts sake in healthcare , is already thriving across the waters in Great Britain, and I 'm doing this new ( well, second time it has been run) course to marry together the two areas in my life , which somehow never seemed to merge or link in together prior to this.
I 've worked as a health professional  in some form or other in Dublin over the last 30 years, and as a professional artist in Ireland over the past 20 years


These are exciting times to be involved in this emerging and evolving area in Ireland today

The following websites are new..and are bang up to date with whats is happening in this area in Ireland today.




A very interesting article - Oscar Kokoshka and Auguste Forel written by Prof Des O Neill,-  gerontologist in Adelaide and Meath Hospital , Tallaght, Dublin can be found
on   strokeahajournals.org/content/36/9/2037.full

It discusses how Kokoschka seemed to predict an imminent stroke in the sitter Forel, bringing to light how some artists seem to tune into other dimensions of their subjects, other than that visible to the naked eye.


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