Dominguez creates public art at Bryan to commemorate Covid-19 pandemic experience
calendar icon28 Feb 2024 user iconBy Kathe C. Andersen
Lincoln, Neb.--School of Art, Art History & Design Professor of Art Eddie Dominguez recently completed a two-segment public art project created for Bryan Health Systems to commemorate the community’s experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A 12-foot by 22-foot mosaic mural located at Bryan East includes a cluster of clouds with words submitted by hospital staff, who were asked to reflect on their experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The second work, located at Bryan West, includes three nine-foot-tall pillars with mosaics. The first has geometric patterns featuring colors and shapes. The second is a sky with eagles, swans and flowers cascading into a lower landscape. The third includes more of the collected words on clouds.
“They had put a call out that they were interested in looking for an artist that would do a Covid memorial to honor the first responders at the hospital,” Dominguez said. “I don’t generally respond to calls like that, but when I saw this, there was a calling—a feeling that I had about the way I function in public art work projects, and I thought this was a venue for that philosophy, so I went ahead and applied.”
Bob Ravenscroft, system vice president and chief marketing and development officer at Bryan Health, said shortly after the availability of a Covid-19 vaccine and between surges of hospital utilization, they were approached by a handful of people with an affinity for art who were interested in funding a permanent thank you for what they called “the heroic effort of our team.” Bryan Health wanted something that would be meaningful to their team since they saw thousands of Covid patients at both Bryan East and Bryan West campuses.
“Eddie responded to the RFP (request for proposal), and his proposal easily emerged as the best concept,” Ravenscroft said. “Eddie suggested commissioning sculptures that would very directly incorporate the voice of our team, engaging with doctors, nurses and support staff that cared for critically ill and dying patients and what they felt during this challenging time.”
Ravenscroft said they are pleased with the final pieces.
“The sculptures turned out beautifully,” he said. “We often see staff and visitors reflecting on the words embedded in the beautiful tile work. While it was created to memorialize efforts here in Nebraska during a worldwide pandemic, it seems to work for just about any feeling people have when they or a loved one is hospitalized and for those who work everyday to care for them.”
The project offered a different way for Dominguez to engage with the community.
“The hospital gave me all of the vocabulary that I used in the image, so in that way, it was community engaged without people being physically connected to the work, and I was satisfied with that,” Dominguez said.
He also worked with six University of Nebraska–Lincoln students throughout the two-year project, including two that were not art majors.
“I had a nice range of people, and we had a real nice time learning all about how to make work together,” Dominguez said. “I think they really loved it and got invested in it. We all bonded in a really beautiful way.”
Clouds are featured in both pieces, which was an inspiration for Dominguez.
“I think that when we look up into the sky, there’s always this kind of optimism and hope,” he said. “And when we look up at the clouds, they’re fleeting and drifting. I’ve always had a thing for clouds. I put the words in the clouds, and I think it kind of feels like sending up prayers. There’s a native philosophy like that when people look up into the sky. And maybe it wasn’t completely my intention, but you allow the creativity to express itself, and this is how it came out. I have a garden at the bottom, and then the clouds falling out of that. I think they’re really pretty beautiful images, and they have a lot of sentiment.”
Dominguez had his own health issues during the making of the pieces and found himself in and out of hospitals at times throughout the process.
“I felt like I was in it physically,” he said. “It’s odd how that worked out, but I began to understand by being in these situations what the staff did, what the nurses did, what everybody’s job was and how meaningful and important everybody’s positions are in hospitals. I was grateful to witness that with a greater understanding because I think that it fed this project.”
Dominguez said the mosaics were a labor of love.
“There were some very potent words in there, and I wanted to include everything because it was a difficult time,” he said. “And there was nothing wrong with having words like sad and longing and missing and desperate. These were words that defined that time in our lives. And there was some optimism, too. I put a word in there—Zoom. That was the one thing in my world that had really changed, and I learned a lot by doing that. So there was knowledge that was being passed around. It was interesting how many words got repeated. I didn’t repeat them in the mural, but I could see that some people said family multiple times, for example.”
Being a part of this project meant a lot to Dominguez.
“I’ve been part of the university system for 25 years, and I’ve always been an artist that felt like I needed to give something to the community, and that I wanted something in the community to be involved in whatever gifting I was giving. It’s just how I think about things,” he said. “And this provided an opportunity for me to do that—to leave something for my community that I’m a part of. And the hospital is just a few blocks from my house, so it even felt like it was in my neighborhood. It was a rewarding feeling. And that’s why I think public art is important because we can generate community interest in it, through it, with it.”
Allison Achtenhagen (B.F.A. 2023) worked with Dominguez for a year between August 2022 and July 2023 on the pieces.
“I’d briefly had one or two conversations with Eddie prior to him approaching me to work on this project,” she said. “I’d seen the beginning of it through social media, and it looked absolutely amazing, so when I was given the opportunity to become a part of it, it was an easy yes.”
She had several different roles on the project.
“The biggest thing I did was arrange the tiles, following Eddie’s design, on a table in his studio, which we then glued to paper and cut into smaller sections to be able to install,” she said. “I was also very involved with the installation process of the columns, which was a really rewarding experience.”
Getting to work alongside Dominguez was the best part of the experience for her.
“I worked on this project with him throughout my senior year, which was a time of huge change, big decisions and questioning what comes next for me, so being able to talk with Eddie as we worked and get his perspective and opinions was life-changing,” she said. “I also loved watching him navigate all of the issues that came up throughout this process and feeling like he trusted us to help in those trickier moments.”
Achtenhagen is now in Kansas City as an artist-in-residence at the Kansas City Clay Guild. She hopes people get a little bit of joy from these pieces when they see them.
“They are bright and colorful and full of little flowers and bees that you discover more as you look closely,” she said. “Even if you spend just a minute with them, it is a moment to breathe and enjoy the beauty before continuing on to what is next in your day. I think that is especially powerful given that they are outside of two hospitals where people would not have that moment to pause and smile.”
Kinga Aletto (B.S. Fisheries and Wildlife with a minor in Studio Art 2022), who is currently in her second semester of veterinarian school at St. George University on Grenada in the Caribbean, worked on the pillars for Bryan West in the summer of 2022.
“In my freshman year, I had a beginning drawing class with Eddie as my professor,” Aletto said. “At the end of the semester, he had asked me if I would be willing to work with him over the summer through UCARE. Unfortunately, that summer I had a job lined up, but for the next two summers (2020 and 2021), I worked with Eddie through UCARE creating other art pieces, as well as my own projects. I originally did not plan to work with Eddie for a third summer, as I was spending time bulking up my application for vet school, but when Eddie showed me what the project would be and his previous mosaic works, I knew that, in some capacity, that I wanted to be involved.”
She wanted to work with Dominguez.
“Though I don’t consider myself a ceramic person, I have not only loved looking at and appreciating Eddie’s work, but also working with him in and outside the studio as someone I hold in esteem,” she said. “I helped with painting and firing tiles for the columns, drawing reference for the imagery, and breaking and placing mosaic pieces on the references to later be put on the columns. This mainly consisted of birds and flowers, my favorite being the Sandhill cranes.”
Luke Keilig, a senior sculpture major, has worked with Dominguez through UCARE for two years.
“I was involved from the start of the making process,” he said. “I helped glaze tiles, fired them in the kiln, and helped sort them into the design he envisioned. I also helped during the installation process.”
He said the best part of the project was working with Dominguez.
“Working with Eddie was an experience I will never forget,” Keilig said. He is a unique and caring individual that cares deeply about the community and his students. I learned a lot about ceramics, but he has also taught me things about life and even cooking.”
Pha Nguyen (B.F.A. 2018) said he didn’t originally plan to be a part of this public art project.
“I simply wanted to do anything and everything that involves Eddie Dominguez,” he said. “I worked alongside Eddie to help the other students stay on track, organize the studio, arranging the tile colors and coming up with solutions to keep things orderly and streamline the process so the other students could just come in and pick up where we had left off.”
He appreciated being a part of the experience and learning from Dominguez.
“It’s really cool to see not just a few art students and Eddie Dominguez, who makes the projects possible, but also so many other people and especially the staff at the hospital pitching in some ways to bring the idea to life. So seeing the communal efforts is so beautiful and inspiring.”
Dominguez hopes people find comfort and beauty in the two projects.
“Maybe those words were an expression of Covid, but I think they also speak about what’s happening inside of that place. There’s so much that happens within the hospital from mental health services to physical services to emergencies,” he said. “Like all poetry or language, it can have several meanings. Maybe the umbrella was that it was a memorial to the Covid experience, but I think it was also speaking to what goes on in a hospital.”
He's glad he was able to work on this project.
“I was really grateful to have the opportunity to do it,” Dominguez said. “I got more out of it than I could have imagined.”