Thesis:

A Turn of the Heart is an art project to give cancer patients and their families at the Watson Clinic something to think about besides cancer.

Project Brief:

The project is a set of pictures that are resembling either paradise, peaceful places or iconic world landmarks to provoke good thoughts.  The idea of the project was that it would benefit the patients and families at the Watson Clinic by fostering good thoughts and an art piece that they could interact with.  Also, it is shaped like a heart so that the patients would feel the presence of love and know that they are loved by someone.

Project Description:

In the Art Therapy Studio, projects are created to help benefit the patients and families at the Watson Clinic in Lakeland.  Through all their grief, they can still be in a better place by just a glance.  Each panel can be turned to show different landmarks and scenery.  There were many hurdles in attempting to reach the final project.  The initial project was to make a virtual reality machine, that formulated different beautiful landmarks, it did not have enough interaction with the patients.   A Turn of the Heart enables patients to interact and see beautiful landscapes.  The project could expand with all the 5 senses moving forward.  This project will serve as a great source of positive thoughts and encouragement for the patients and family members. 

Thesis:

A Turn of the Heart is an art project to give cancer patients and their families at the Watson Clinic something to think about besides cancer.

Project Brief:

The project is a set of pictures that are resembling either paradise, peaceful places or iconic world landmarks to provoke good thoughts.  The idea of the project was that it would benefit the patients and families at the Watson Clinic by fostering good thoughts and an art piece that they could interact with.  Also, it is shaped like a heart so that the patients would feel the presence of love and know that they are loved by someone.

Project Description:

In the Art Therapy Studio, projects are created to help benefit the patients and families at the Watson Clinic in Lakeland.  Through all their grief, they can still be in a better place by just a glance.  Each panel can be turned to show different landmarks and scenery.  There were many hurdles in attempting to reach the final project.  The initial project was to make a virtual reality  machine, that formulated different beautiful landmarks, it did not have enough interaction for the patients.   A Turn of the Heart enables patients to interact and see beautiful landscapes.  The project could expand with all the 5 senses moving forward.  This project will serve as a great source of positive thoughts and encouragement for the patients and family members.  

Project Statement:

 A Turn of the Heart is a set of pictures that are resembling either paradise, peaceful places or iconic world landmarks to provoke good thoughts. It took many sets of iterations and prototypes to create the final project presented today.  The idea for this project came after a visit to the Watson Clinic in Lakeland where we found two initial ideas to come up with the same  result.  The first idea was a set of stained glass windows that depicted different messages of hope or images when you put a special pair of glasses on and looked into them. The second idea was for a Virtual Reality machine that when in, the user would be taken to their personal paradise by seeing, hearing and feeling like they were transported to a better place.  After combining these two ideas in the hopes of bringing an escape for patients, we looked at different ways to develop this project. After thought on this project idea we moved towards something that the patients could interact with more such as panels they could spin to see a picture of their paradise. After deciding on this as the path for our project, we decided to begin by first designing the layout using cardboard cutouts and wooden dowel rods. Once we had a visual for how the project would look, we began to work more on the mechanism to make sure the panels could all spin while still staying in the shape of a heart. After minor complications with the mechanism and the flow of our panels in their spinning motion, we rearranged the panels and spaced them out so they could spin freely and still keep the shape of a heart.  Once this was finished we began our final project by making etchings and cut outs in rhino.  We then put the etchings and cut outs onto the wooden boxes we had designed in box designer and we cut them all out.  We finished our final project by putting all the boxes together and them placing them in order on the steel rods within the framework.  This finalized the project we have today.