Here's A Video To Make Someone Smile

Hi Everyone,

I thought I’d share a cute video that seemed to put a smile on a lot of faces —even normally grouchy ones. (LOL) My goal when making videos and art is to help create health, healing, and happiness in others. Enjoy!

Evidence-based Design. What does it really mean?

What does it mean when someone claims to be Evidence-based Design Certified?

I’m a super fan of the Center for Health Design’s internationally recognized EDAC (evidence-based design accreditation and certification) program.

Why? The program is arduous and legitimate and it awards a credential to “individuals who demonstrate an understanding of how to apply an evidence-based process to the design and construction of all settings that contribute to health, safety and wellbeing including measuring and reporting results.” (healthdesign.org)

Who are the people who go for this certification?

Architects, Designers, Healthcare Executives, Healthcare Providers, Academics, Engineering and Construction Professionals, Product Manufactures, and artists like me who REALLY CARE about designing—using methodology rooted in medical research for the health, healing, and happiness of others.

I got really interested in the subject after seeing lots of art and art experts claim that paintings with dripping blood and badly deformed items and unhealthy looking human figures and shocking colors and compositions were okay to promote as art for health and healing. It wasn’t okay with me, so I looked for a program that would teach/influence/inspire me to create art for the health, safety, and wellbeing of others.

Here’s an Evidence-based Art video I created as a little promotion. The painting is called Oh, Baby Blue! I Love You!

Evidence-based Art Reflects Overcoming

The Power Of Love Over Hate

Some people insist evidence-based art should be 100 percent peaceful and serene and without any reflections of human challenges or difficulties. Based on my physical recovery experience (2 major operations within 30 days and over a year to recover), I politely disagree.

In the recovery process, people need lots of rest and relaxation—but we also need to feel hope. We need to feel encouraged to overcome our difficulties, even when that means complete restoration, only certain improvements, or sadly even acceptance.

One way to see this overcoming in art is to see a challenge or negativity in the background of a work and then have the foreground colors and images overcome it.

Here’s another video clip with a painting that does just that.

Below the video you can read the—not so peaceful and serene—actual story behind this evidence-based work called The Power Of Love Over Hate.

Here’s the story behind this evidence-based work:

I got trained to paint when I was only 7/8 years old. Today when I paint, I still go to that childlike, very vulnerable, and authentic part of my being and channel my art outwards. I live a happy, minimalist lifestyle, so most of the time when creating florals, I paint lovely art for the health and healing of others; however, on the rare occasion, the negativity of our world invades and can be seen inside my work.

When I began this painting, I was invaded by a worker doing a minor repair in my home/studio who started talking radical politics and would just not shut up. In his many words I kept hearing this message: I hate this group. I hate that group. Did you know this racial group is to blame for this? Did you know that cultural group is to blame for that? You need to support my political guy. If you don’t support my political guy, there is something wrong with you. Are you my enemy? Are you one of us?

As I laid the background stems for this painting, I was still processing how negative and dangerous this seemingly everyday American citizen was, and it inadvertently came out in the overly dark blue stem color I selected and in the over-intensity of my strokes.

Loving and hating others are human choices, and as I continued to work on the canvas, I kept choosing colors and images that overpowered the negativity of the stems and reflected the beauty and THE POWER OF LOVE OVER HATE.

Life Threatening Illness and Evidence-based Art

Have you ever had a life threatening illness? Most of my life was major illness free and then—WHAM!—I ended up in the hospital with 2 major operations within 30 days. It was no picnic, and it took me over a year to recuperate.

From this experience, I learned on a life-or-death level about fears of dying, overcoming physical trauma, fighting for hope, and the need for real evidence-based art. Real evidence-based art uses design principles based on “real medical studies” for human health and healing.

I went on to become EDAC (Evidence-based Design Certified), and often when I paint, my goal is to create beautiful, happy art that soothes and relaxes—but also stimulates. In the recovery process, it’s important to heal (rest and relaxation) but also essential to stay upbeat and in motion (stimulated) for recovery.

Here’s another evidence-based art video for you!

Let's Relax With Evidence-based Art

Take a moment. Take a break. Enjoy a little relaxation with a one minute video with evidence-based art. No sales. No hype. It was created just for you! Evidence-based art uses medical studies in the design process.

The painting in this video was created using Evidence-based Design research. Multiple credible studies now show connections between certain types of art and positive health outcomes.

Wishing you the very best!

Dorothea Sandra, BA, EDAC

New Joy! Joy! Floral Happiness by Dorothea Sandra

People often call me a painter of HOPE. They tell me all the time how happy my floral art makes them feel.

I was the July/August 2021 featured artist at the Thunder Bay Arts Council Gallery in Alpena, Michigan. (By the way, this is a lovely gallery with many talented local artists.) During this time, these florals just flew out the gallery’s two big display windows—to Michiganders..to people from New England…Arizona…California—sometimes 5 at time.

What’s the secret?

I strive for happiness—not beauty—when painting this type of evidence-based art. Of course, the painting needs to be beautiful, but more than this, each work must create in its viewers/owners a sense of being loved or liked or made to feel really happy. The art has to GIVE MORE THAN ART, and it needs to keep giving and giving and giving.

The paintings in these videos were created using Evidence-based Design research. Multiple credible studies now show connections between certain types of art and positive health outcomes!

Do Communities Benefit From Evidence-based Art?

I tell everyone I’m really more of an abstract artist, but because there is such a need in today’s world, I create (and sell lots of) Evidence-based Art for the health, healing, and happiness of others.

For most of each year, I like to live remotely along one of the Great Lakes in a small Northern Michigan town. Whenever I can, I try to share my evidence-based art freely with people in this town and the surrounding communities.

Here’s a little video clip I created and boosted on Facebook to let everyone in the Northern Michigan counties (and Mackinac County) know they are most welcome to visit a local business (with a really big heart) to see walls and walls of high quality, beautiful evidence-based art.

The viewing bench I bought has also been a really big hit with all ages.

Are the communities in my area benefiting from viewing all this evidence-based art? Based on the number of people who come in to buy a little artistic something of good cheer for themselves or as a gift, and based on the number of people who just want to come in and walk around (or sit on that viewing bench and stare), I think sharing my national/international evidence-based art on an ongoing basis has been a really big community hit!

My absolute favorite moments are when kids and teens come in. Often one or two of them will stop for the longest time in front of one of the paintings, and I can see from the intensely analytical look on their faces, they’re trying really hard to figure out just how I did this and just how l did that. I consider my art a gift—which should be shared!

(To see my ABSTRACT ART website, click on the link at the bottom of this post or go to dorotheasandragallery.com.)

Art To Cheer Up A Heart

Not enough people can say this, but I LOVE WHAT I DO!

Art To Cheer Up A Heart by Contemporary Artist Dorothea Sandra

Each morning I wake up looking forward to my work day. Some say I do it for money…others say I do it for fame…BUT those petty, unkind, and critical words do not even come close to the truth in my heart. It is true most of my art is inspired by our beautiful planet, but my reason for painting is to create through art hope and happiness and health and healing for our planet and in the lives of others.

Art To Cheer Up A Heart by Contemporary Artist Dorothea Sandra adds refinement and fun and a colorful lift to this space.

Art To Cheer Up A Heart by Dorothea Sandra. Love the way this antique frame fits in this modern setting.

I begin with a background color in mind. Some days it’s pink, other times blue, but I’m always open to something new! I buy top quality canvas, always primed with gesso, but I like to add another layer of it, just to increase quality and remain “error-free” safe.

The next thing I do is plan out the painting’s movement. Is it going up or will it sway to one side? For this painting, I chose an upward movement. I wanted people to get the feeling that looking at all these flowers gives them a mood-lift-up or boost. And that’s why I named it, “Art To Cheer Up A Heart.”

Art To Cheer Up A Heart by Contemporary Artist Dorothea Sandra 36”x48”

An Artist, EDAC Certified, and A Business Plan

People don’t normally associate artists with business plans—but I have one—and my business plan makes EDAC a foundational part of it.

“EDAC stands for Evidence-based Design Accreditation and Certification.  It is a program that has established new standards for individuals who are using an evidence-based design process for healthcare building projects.” (which includes art)

Some people say EBD (Evidence-based Design) is an “old hat” concept. They say design professionals have been using research to guide their decisions for years and years. 

This is true, and in the 6th century BCE, the Asclepieion hospital in Ancient Greece, which included patient rooms facing eastward to promote healing, may have perhaps used some form of “old hat” research. Today, however, Evidence-based Design has a new focus which not only considers evidence but “strong” evidence.

Other critics say EBD employs “cook book design” strategies. They say decisions made using the Evidence-based Design process focus too much on evidence and not enough on experience or imagination. I once freely created wild abstract art where colors of death (black or white) and pours of blood (red) and the hideous or representational woes of society came together in an image—BUT NOW I DON’T. 

I made a choice—especially since today’s “evidence” shows credible connections between design (which includes art) and positive health outcomes. My “chosen” artistic style/brand is a mixture of landscape and an abundance of flowers, which falls directly inside the type of art connected to positive health outcomes. 

If anything, I think using Evidence-based Design has made me a better artist—not just for myself but for the health, healing and happiness of others. 

Why I Call My Paintings "Evidence-based" Restorative/Healing Art!

I’d like to talk today about “evidence-based” restorative/healing art. Lately, I’ve noticed more and more people (a few art pros, too) who are claiming many paintings are “healing” works of art, but after looking at the pieces (sometimes with daggers and dripping blood and twisted heads or totally “abstract” images), I’ve started to wonder if they’ve actually read (which I do) the “medical outcomes” research and if they really understand the depth of the psychological and emotional wounding that almost always occurs when patients and their families are dealing with major illnesses. 

Before I even began calling my paintings “evidence-based,” I first did extensive research on what the exact requirements and qualifications were in this category of art. Research from “actual studies done” in Norway, England, the US, and other countries, shows there’s a general patient preference for landscapes (regional, generic, or seasonal); waterscapes (regional, generic, or seasonal); florals (garden or bouquet styles); still-life (but used sparingly for variety); and a “whole host” of other detailed requirements. 

Some of these “whole host of details” to consider before claiming a work of art is “evidence-based” also includes things like waterscapes to be calm or non-turbulent; landscapes to have visual depth, open foreground, trees with broad canopy, verdant vegetation, and positive cultural artifacts; flowers to look healthy and fresh, familiar in shape; and the background knowledge to do this kind of painting goes on and on and on. To say a work of art is “evidence-based” first requires knowing and meeting the requirements of the “evidence-based” studies. 

The other thing I consider when painting is the depth of the psychological and emotional wounding that almost always occurs when patients and their families are dealing with major illnesses. Sitting in a hospital or home recovery room with full of force and impact “abstract” art on the wall or having to have to look at—especially just after having your body “penetrated” by a medical procedure—the powerful and penetrating colors of black and red (and to make it worse images shaped like daggers or pours like dripping blood) is the total opposite of what’s needed for health, healing and happiness.

I don’t have all the “evidence-based” art answers, but I do try to know many of them, and I know people (many of them cancer survivors) tell me—all the time—how the paintings I create for this market make them feel happy, healthy, and full of hope!

(For some of the information in this blog, I would like to give credit to NOAH Resources and The Center For Health Design.)

A Garden of Hope And Happiness by dorotheasandra.com (Acceptable as evidence-based art.)

Hopeful Happiness by dorotheasandra.com (Acceptable as evidence-based art.)

Hope by dorotheasandra.com (Acceptable as evidence-based art.)

Visual Dynamite From An Interior Designer

The art of interior designing has always amazed me. As an acrylic artist, I mostly work on canvas rectangles or squares from 11”x14” to 5’x 8’ but interior designers often have to consider WHOLE ROOMS…ENTIRE AREAS…ENORMOUS SPACES! How cool is that?

Recently I had a really awesome “How Cool Is That?” online experience with a designer I had never met. Here’s the story:

“As I usually do, I got on Instagram early in the morning to see what’s new. I noticed one of my paintings got a LIKE from a design company I didn’t know, so I clicked on it. Wow!  Was I blown away!  Pamela Hope Designs pamelahopedesigns.com had posted a photo of the coolest mahjong sofa set I had ever seen. Hyper-vivid reds, greens, yellows, super cool patterns, all arranged Asian style! It was like visual dynamite going off inside my head, so I clicked on her website link for more—and I wasn’t disappointed. What a lovely site! What talent! (You’ve got to check her out!) I went from photo to photo to section to section until I ended up at her blog. Her 2020 predictions were to “go bold with color” and “blues and greens” would be popular this year.  So impressed with Pamela’s blog, beautiful website, and color selections, I decided to make green my other “it” color in a painting on which I was working.  What I didn’t know—which is what makes this story so cool —is after I had added all the green flowers to the painting, I found out my business manager had sent Pamela an intro to our studio letter and she also liked dorotheasandra.com enough to start following my work on Instagram. Hurrah for social media and destiny and fabulously talented interior designers!”

Here’s a photo of the painting “BEFORE” being influenced by Pamela Hope Designs.

What a “blah” beginning “BEFORE” being influenced by Pamela Hope Designs!

Here’s the same painting “AFTER” reading Pamela’s blog. See how her “interior designer” talent added to this painting getting more POP! 

The “greens” definitely added POP and gave it more credibility as an “evidence-based” restorative/healing work of art.

Here’s the finished painting! Heartfelt Happiness by dorotheasandra.com. Acrylic on 36” x 48” heavy duty gallery wrapped canvas. Can you see the heart shape inside the painting? Can you see how much Pamela O’Brien at pamelahopedesigns.com had a big impact on my art? How cool is that!

Are you suffering from "Prisoner of the Wired World" syndrome?

Are you suffering from “Prisoner of the Wired World” syndrome?

If so, you might also have a bad case of eco-anxiety, eco-grief, eco-trauma, or even eco-despair. How in the world do people end up there? Simply put—many humans (and species) have lost their connection to Nature, and this “disconnect” from Nature has the potential to cause huge trauma and distress.

I now live in a town pretty much bordered by state forests and state parks and the 5th largest freshwater lake in the world (Lake Huron). Whenever I need a break from my “super-wired online business/fine art/graphic design world” I just take a drive or go outside and walk around my lakeside town.

Yet, for so many millions of people on our planet, easy access to an abundance of Nature just isn’t part of their reality. Is there any hope out there for the eco-deprived and wired-to-the-world weary? From someone who has lived in Boston, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Toronto, and Tokyo, the answer is “Yes!”

According to numerous studies, viewing psychologically appropriate ART benefits human health. In fact, viewing “evidence-based” restorative/healing art can even “significantly affect medical outcomes such as blood pressure, anxiety, intake of pain medication, and length of hospital stay.”

Here’s an example. When I was younger, I created art for “my” self-expression. It was dark and dramatic and met “my” needs.

Layers Of Death (not for sale) by Dorothea Sandra

An Abstract Mind (not for sale) by Dorothea Sandra

Swamp Ghosts (not for sale) by Dorothea Sandra

Today, I create art for the health, healing and happiness of others. I “deliberately and strategically” use beautiful colors and flowers and landscapes to help “reconnect” my viewers to Nature. Connecting to Nature, even in the form of art, has been shown (by one study after another) to help us. Also, as you can see from the photos below, restorative/healing art doesn’t have to be boring. It can have movement and POP and dramatic beauty.

The Creative Thinker’s Garden by dorotheasandra.com

Flowers Going Ziggy by dorotheasandra.com

Great Lakes Flowers Singing by dorotheasandra.com

Is Creating Art For Health, Healing and Happiness Science or Mysticism?

Hopeful Happiness by dorotheasandra.com

Is creating art for health, healing and happiness science or pure mysticism? I think we’ve come a long way in “evidence-based” art design. For many hospitals or medical facilities “evidence-based art” is the only way to go. It isn’t just about an artist creating something for artistic impact, it is art based on the scientific analysis of the impact of art on healthcare environments, on patients, and on staff. This isn’t mere mysticism. This involves art based on rigorous scientific studies and a reporting of their outcomes.

When I create art for health, healing and happiness, I draw from my knowledge of what makes up “evidence-based” restorative/healing art, and I try to put myself in the position of the individuals purchasing art for these reasons. I often imagine myself as an interior designer tasked with an important job or as a healthcare art consultant responsible for making major decisions impacting the health and well-being of so many people.

“Evidence-based” restorative/healing art carefully considers colors and subject matter and overall impact on its viewers. It takes a viewer’s state or situation into consideration and tries to keep it positive and—if the viewer is not doing well—perhaps even turn it around.

Whether working on a 5’x8’ canvas or 9”x12” print, the feeling of HOPE is something I try to build somewhere inside most of my art. I try to create art that people look at and say, “This painting is so cheerful. It makes me feel happy. No matter how difficult my situation might be at this moment, these colors and shapes and Nature-based subject matter (high in the “evidence-based” criteria) create inside me a feeling of HOPE.

For me, this kind of art isn’t about artistic whims or muses or mysticism. It’s all about relying on “evidence” and using my talent/creativity to create health, healing and happiness!

Great Lakes Singing by dorotheasandra.com