The Knitting Nanas coaxed smiles from virtually everyone they made contact with during their Desert Island Knits residency at Derby Hospitals. On 28 March 2012, between 10am and 12noon, they elicited 504 smiles*. I know, because I counted them with a doorman’s clicker.

The Knitting Nana’s are also known as Maison Foo. A Derby-based theatre company for who smiles are answered with smiles.

During their residency, the Knitting Nana’s spent time being idiosyncratic, cheerful and, of course, knitting at patients’ bedsides in the Stroke Rehab Unit, Renal Unit and wards, Kings Treatment Centre, London Road Community Hospital, The Grove, the Macmillan Unit, the Children’s Hospital and Ward 206, plus waiting areas, public corridors and the lifts.

The Knitting Nana’s will be back at the Royal Derby Hospital for their Jubilee street party on Friday 1^st June – you can join them from 11am – 2pm. Just pop along to Entrance 24, (by Cancer & Specialist Services).  Everyone is very welcome, the Nana’s are planning a jolly good shindig.

*From patients and staff on the Renal Ward; and from staff, patients and visitors traversing through the hospital.

Green Door Printmaking Studio is Derbyshire’s only open access artist studio dedicated to the art and craft of innovative and environmentally sound printmaking. Anna and Pandora Johnson, the co-founders of Green Door and Mother/daughter team based in Derby are proud to present a special collection of prints from selected members of our studio. For this exhibition, artists from the studio worked in close collaboration with air the arts for well-being charity at Derby Hospitals  to showcase a wide range work using our innovative printmaking techniques with the aim of bringing a little of the outside world into spaces within the hospital.

For more information about Green Door Printmaking Studio, please visit: www.greendoor-printmaking.co.uk

The clocks have been created by Nottingham based fused glass artist Lucy Hall.  Lucy gave a lot of thought to the mechanical construction so that each clock can be clearly read and always relied on to tell the right time. However the design also shares a deeper understanding of how time can pass quite differently depending on your circumstances.

“I selected types of glass with different properties that allow for the intensity of colour, depth and definition of shadow to change with the light throughout the day. I wanted to demonstrate how time seems to travel differently depending on our moods and the different pleasures and pressures that effect our days. “

A kaleidoscope of different coloured glass surrounds the clock face in keeping with the areas colour scheme.

The larger of the two clocks welcomes visitors on arrive and has been hung above the directory of wards and departments. A second smaller clock sits behind the reception desk visible to those waiting in the seated area.

Funded by the Derby Hospital Charity the clock commissioning process was supported by the Trusts Design Arts and Wayfinding Group who manage arts and enhancement schemes to aid the patient and visitor experience.

Wendy Locke is the Patient representative on the group and has been involved in approving this commission.

“As a patient and regular visitor to the hospital I believe that these two clocks designed by Lucy are the perfect mix of practicality and beauty and I am sure they will be appreciated for many years to come.”

Lucy Hall www.juicyglass.com     

Following a very festive winter musical season at the Royal Derby Hospital, the hospitals arts team air is launching the spring music season `Nightingale`. The season will feature an array of vocal performances including folk singer and musician Lester Simpson and the Derby all male acapella choir.

The Nightingale season of music has been made possible through donations from patients, visitors and staff. Who support the aim of these music performances in providing uplifting musical moment of distraction as a part of the hospital experience.

”The therapeutic effect of live music in an healthcare environment has been well documented and is proven to us each time someone passes by with a smile or chooses to contribute their spare change in to our donations bucket during a performance.”

Juliet Cooper air Arts Coordinator

The spring music season will be running from the 21^st February 2012 – 17^th April 2012. Kicking off with the classical guitarist Alex-Lloyd-Williams performing in locations throughout the hospital as a `wandering mistral` .

Gordon Savage, the conductor of the Derby all male acapella choir say’s

“We are looking forward to being part of the air arts spring season and performing at the hospital. We very much enjoy singing and performing and if we are able to brighten a person’s day then that is a fantastic accomplishment.”

Full Performance Listing

Tuesday 21^st February   Alex Lloyd Williams, Classical Guitar   Wandering Minstrel

Monday 5^th March   Lester Simpson, Folk Singer & Musician    level 1 Lift Lobby

Tuesday 13^th March   QHQ, Vocal Quartet      Kings Treatment Centre

Friday 23^rd March     Derby’s all male Acapella Choir    Kings Treatment Centre

Tuesday 27^th March   Katarina Kulisa, Violinist     Wandering Minstrel

Friday 10^th April     Linda and Eleanor Potter, Harp & Vocalist   level 1 Lift Lobby

Tuesday 17^th April    Majika, Guitar & Vocalist     Wandering Minstrel

All performances will be held between 12.30pm and 2.30pm.

2012_Music_Poster_v3

Click the link for them to tell you about it  http://vimeo.com/user5198812/nannagramms 

More detail on the project and how you can get involved can be found on the THEATRE pages of airarts.net or just respond to this post.

Following almost a month, dedicating much of her spare time to the project, artist Diana Shepherd has completed a series of 3 large scale drawings for the Kings Treatment Centre at Royal Derby Hospital.

Based on scenes from the historic Arboretum Park in Derby  the large public wall spaces walls have come alive with detailed expressions of trees, birds and architecture.

Di enjoyed the time spent within the hospital and was grateful for the positive comments she received for patients visitors and staff   “I have found it an extraordinarily lovely experience,  The power of drawing! ”

Di Shepherd is an East Midlands artist and co-founder of visual arts organisation Artblock. Artist in Residence at Englands first public park The Arboretum and Charles Abbey Workshops.

 http://web.mac.com/dianashepherd/iWeb/Site/Home.html
http://www.artblock.org.uk

Entitled ‘Life Lines’, the artist Susie describes it as “representing a silver cloud, full of connecting and intertwining lines; A reflection of how our paths intersect and cross, life flowing between us, that we are all a part of a larger whole.”

 Many patients who have been cared for in the hospital have transformed the lives of others through the generous donation of their organs following their death. While organ transplant operations themselves are not carried out at the Royal Derby Hospital, patients who have received a transplant are cared for by the Trust.

 The donor family advisor to the Organ Donation Committee, whose son became an organ donor following a road accident, said: “The feeling that a little bit of our son is still out there somewhere, helping to give someone a better life, has been the silver lining in our cloud.”

You can join the NHS Organ Donor Register by:

 Filling in a form www.uktransplant.org.uk

 Calling the NHS Donor Line on 0300 123 23 23

 (Lines are open 24 hours a day all year round. Calls are charged at your contracted rate for local calls)

 By texting SAVE to 84118

 Life Lines has been funded by the Organ Donation Committee from monies allocated to promote organ donation locally and recognise the ultimate gift of life that an organ donor makes.

Derby Hospitals arts programme air commissioned Living Derby photographer Hannah Fox to create a new body of work using the hospitals Hidden Histories archive to discover and interpret some of the stories of Derby’s Hospitals. With the archive as an inspirational starting point and, through a series of meetings and shadowing experiences with staff across the Trust, Hannah explored some of the Hidden Histories within the hospitals own population.

 Through a series of intimate portraits, Hannah has uncovered some of the people and places within the hospital, which she particularly identified with. A single image is placed permanently on each floor of the acute building, out of their place the subject and their environment are revealed.

 It reports that air arts to aid wellbeing at Derby Hospitals …”is on a good footing to expand its activities for future patient benefit.” and demonstrates “a concerted effort and artistic sophistication in what has already been achieved in delivering the promises mapped out in the trusts arts strategy.”

Downloads of the report in full and executive summary available below:

Air Arts ExecutiveSummary_low res 2

AIR University of Nottingham evaluation report_Full