DWELLING WELL
// expert advice
ST. FRANCIS MEDICAL CENTER
PHOTOS: COURTESY NOYES ART DESIGNS
Saving Spaces How one full-service, COLORADO ART CONSULTING FIRM is transforming residences, hospitals, corporations and more, one piece of art at a time. By Kathryn O’Shea-Evans JUST LIKE MUSIC AND FOOD, the right visual art can practically have medicinal properties. Just ask Nancy Noyes, founder and president of Noyes Art Designs—which has been making art magic since 1978. “We’re a full-service art consulting firm, and we specialize in what we call the ‘constructive healing cycle’ as our
process of design,” she says. “I long ago made up my mind that art has to be more than décor. It has to be part of healing, whether that’s in healthcare, or in the corporate world, or in a residence.” The goal, Noyes says, is “to create the same harmony in your home or your facility that’s found in nature in its most balanced state,” says Noyes. The firm’s recent projects have included everything from residential art curation and placement to creating curated art pieces and even Denver-inspired signage (like imagery of the Denver Botanic Garden) at the new Denver Health Outpatient Medical Center. Some of her favorite Colorado artists? Carol Ann Waugh, who “does beautiful fiber art and it’s just fabulous,” and an encaustic artist named Victoria Eubanks. “She does really wonderful work with wax, and so her work really becomes soft even though it’s very contemporary.” Curating art pieces in therapeutic ways is vital work, and especially important in today’s harried world. But it wasn’t always easy to explain in the pre-self-care era. “I’ve been doing 28
january 2022 // AvidLifestyle
this for 43 years,” she says. “In the earlier days you really couldn’t mention feng shui to heads of hospitals or corporations, because they’d just glaze over, thinking you’re a total ‘lala.’” How times have changed, for the benefit of all. “Right now, the whole emphasis on biophilic design—which means bringing the outside in for comfort and protection—has really made everything we’ve been doing for years come alive,” Noyes says. “And so when I say we design with intent, that means that there’s all the outside elements of the constructive healing cycle, which is our coined phrase, is water, wood, fire, earth and metal. And so each one of those elements has a meaning, a shape, a color, and a material... If I need a water piece, I could use the color black or blue as the color. The
