Hope and Healing: Inspiration for an Uncertain Future
Jon Kuhn, an internationally collected glass sculptor, is a reflective, almost introverted man who ponders the human search for meaning and expresses his findings in his art. On the evening of September 11, Jon Kuhn lingered after hours at his studio in Winston-Salem, NC, sorting through the events of the day and trying, like much of the world, to find peace or understanding about what had happened.
So, when the Kuhn Studio phone rang late that afternoon, Jon Kuhn was there to answer. It was Dr. Elms Allen, Medical Director of the Forsyth Regional Cancer Canter, calling to discuss the possibility of commissioning a Kuhn sculpture for the Center.
Slated to open at Forsyth Memorial Hospital, Winston-Salem, NC, by the end of November 2001, the facility will unite medical, gynecological, and radiation oncology under a single umbrella. It will provide patients and family with a holistic spectrum of support services: a library, a display area for support devices of interest to patients, an auditorium for support group meetings, a chapel, and medical research offices.
In addition, the arts will play a key role in the Center’s environment and its philosophy. According to Dr. Allen, the Winston-Salem Arts Council has awarded a grant to support art therapy at the Center, and plans call for exhibiting visual art on a rotating basis. The common area of the facility, called the Atrium, will contain a grand piano purchased “a key at a time” by supporters. As the Atrium’s visual centerpiece, Dr. Allen imagines a sculpture. He was seeking the approval of the Center’s Board to commission such a work; thus, his call to Jon Kuhn.
Dr. Allen explained to Jon: “We want to make a statement…we want a piece that gives a message of hope and healing”
Jon Kuhn was overwhelmed. If Dr. Allen’s phone call could answer no questions about the meaning of the day’s events, the sheer synchronicity of its timing lifted Jon’s spirits and focused his energy in a more positive direction.
The commissioned sculpture for the Forsyth Regional Cancer Center would be named, “Hope and Healing.” For external form, Dr. Allen and Jon envision a descending wedge with faceted upper corners, inspired by an earlier Kuhn piece currently on exhibit at the Naples, Florida Philharmonic Center for the Arts. The design concept for the interior focal point is both symbolic and representative of the Center’s mission. Five overlapping ribbons, in the style popularized in the fight against AIDS, would adorn the upper center of the piece: red for AIDS (cancers of various types often accompany AIDS, according to Dr. Allen), pink for breast cancer, and aqua for ovarian and uterine cancers. The colors of the remaining two ribbons will be reserved for other forms of cancer; Jon Kuhn has proposed a cobalt or a gold ribbon to represent spirituality, and a green ribbon for healing. Visually, the ribbon cluster is reminiscent of the Olympic symbol, an icon of dedication to a noble, higher calling, of endurance, of hope. The design calls for small, perfect cubes of core material to float above and below the ribbon cluster. Three smaller wedges of colored glass, gold leaf, and clear glass, narrow at the bottom and widening upward, would flank the ribbon cluster on either side, a symbol of “rising up.” The interior elements would be encased in highly polished clear glass shaped to form the wedge. Suspended at viewing level from delicate, stainless steel threads, the sculpture would be a Glass House dedicated to “Hope and Healing.”
The process of bringing to life a piece like “Hope and Healing” calls to mind parallel tenets of health care: patience, attention to detail, and “taking it a step at a time.” The ribbon cluster would be etched and colored, one ribbon at a time, and layered to expand visual dimensionality. The cubes of core material would be assembled from colored, gold or silver leaf, and clear leaded glass pieces as small as 1/8 inch wide. In finished form, “Hope and Healing,” 34 inches tall by 16 inches wide, would contain more than one thousand individual pieces of glass and take between nine months and a year to complete.
Jon Kuhn has spent more than a decade building Glass Houses, not the clichéd glass houses of narcissism, blindness, fear or prejudice, but Houses of Illumination, Houses that offer a view of who we are inside. He sees “Hope and Healing” as an opportunity to contribute, in an intentional and deliberate way, to the cause of healing. By the powerful irony of its timing, coincident with one of our darkest national hours, “Hope and Healing” could serve as an invitation for us all to look within and envision what we hope to become, even as the future seems uncertain.
In the intertwined struggles between good and evil and health and disease, “Hope and Healing” says, “no matter what brutality the world has to offer, good will prevail over evil. It is this belief that keeps hope alive.”
 Updated November 10, 2009 |
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