Student Health Center adds new art

By Gus Bode

A horse is the last thing one would expect to see in the Student Health Center, but Beth Alongi has worked hard to bring one there in the hopes of making students feel better.

The horse, which is part of a painting called ‘Blue,’ hangs in the main waiting room of the center as part of an initiative to incorporate art into the room’s bare walls.

Alongi, marketing director for the center, and Christy Hamilton, the center’s coordinator, applied for a grant that would give the center money to purchase works of art. Alongi said the grant funds were used to purchase a painting at the School of Art and Design’s annual Art Over Easy auction.

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‘We wanted to support our students or the university and potentially local artists as well as alumni from the university,’ Alongi said.

The painting was done by the former program director of art and design, Robert Paulson.’ Paulson said he was reluctant to sell the painting, but did so to help art and design students at SIUC.

‘It’s a damn good painting and I liked it a lot,’ Paulson said. ‘I hated to sell it. I was trying to raise a trust fund for students.’

While Paulson’s work will hang in the waiting room indefinitely, rotating exhibitions of student artwork will hang in the hallway that runs between the Student Health Center and the Recreation Center.

Josh Nobiling, a senior from East Moline studying drawing, has three paintings displayed in the hallway and said he thinks art should have a place in the Student Health Center.

‘ ‘I think there’s definitely therapeutic quality to it. Something you can look (at), it puts you in a different place. It takes you somewhere,’ Nobliling said.

Hamilton said she also believed that looking at art could be beneficial to students who come through the Student Health Center.

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‘We are trying to create an environment of health and well being for students,’ Hamilton said.

Alongi said she is working on finding more student artwork to display in future exhibitions and trying to find ways to raise money so the Student Health Center could continue its art collection.

‘This was never expected to have an art collection overnight,’ said Ted Grace, director of the Student Health Center. ‘This is something that will go on for years.’

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