Posted: 2/16/2006
A blank wall adjacent to the Student Lounge in the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing is undergoing a student-led transformation into a 150-square foot mural named “Faces of Nursing.”
The mural consists of five panels – about 5’6″ wide – that show five distinctly different “faces” of nursing. The first scene depicts a nurse listening to the heartbeat of a hospital patient, while another features military nurses caring for a patient in a field tent. The center panel shows community health nurses visiting a family in a neighborhood of East Baltimore rowhouses. Another nurse is shown giving Reiki to a patient, and the final image is that of a nurse educator in front of a classroom.
The images were chosen through a collaboration of students, faculty, and staff and was coordinated by student Rayanne Harris from the traditional class of 2006. “This vibrant mural will inspire students, staff and faculty alike,” says Harris. “‘Faces of Nursing’ emphasizes that creativity and beauty are not lost elements of nursing. The mural’s many layers of meaning reminds students that though we have many choices in our professional paths, all of them carry common elements of compassion, knowledge and responsibility.”
Working with Harris are team members Bhavini Mody ’06, art director; Frank Gallimore, artist and a creative writing graduate student at Homewood; faculty advisor Jo Walrath; and staff advisors Dean Sandra Angell and Nancy Rent. Twenty student volunteers will paint the majority of the mural at the “Faces of Nursing Paint-In” on Friday, February 24, 2006 from 5:00pm to 9:00pm at the school. Nursing students with formal art training will complete the project over the following weekend.
Funding was provided through the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association and a donation from the senior class of 2006. The Office of Student Services will provide a placard to be placed next to the mural.