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Window Treatments

Celeste Cooning, Eroyn Franklin, Tory Franklin, Kate Sweeney

Harborview Medical Center

Transparent murals create immersive experiences within hospital skybridges.

Tory Franklin and Eroyn Franklin. Fecund, 2015. Digitally printed vinyl film. Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: Richard Nicol

Integrated murals line the windows of three West Hospital skybridges where Harborview Medical Center staff, patients, and visitors circulate and gather throughout the day. Two artists and one artist team designed the murals, which are made of transparent film that allows in natural light while also creating privacy. All of them rooted their designs in images of nature to inspire peaceful immersive experiences.

Painter, printmaker, and installation artist Kate Sweeney got the idea for Through the Light (Floor 3) from hiking in Pacific Northwest forests where shafts of sunlight stream though the tree canopy. She was particularly taken by the image of vine maples climbing toward the sun. In her composition, four windowpanes each use a seasonal color palette, starting with rich spring hues, then moving on to dense summer greens, autumn reds and oranges, and finally winter violets.

For Peaks and Valleys (Floor 4), Celeste Cooning created an ornamental pattern that references both the local landscape and Harborview’s Art Deco details. Rendered in soft whites, greens, and a rosy shade of lavender, the work evokes an ethereal spring day in the Pacific Northwest. Cooning is known for her work with cut paper; this piece started as a cut-paper collage and its digital reproduction reveals the textures and shadows Cooning created by hand.
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Sisters Tory and Eroyn Franklin represented four different ecosystems in Fecund (Floor 5): Pacific Northwest forest, wildflower and grass meadow, tropical jungle and arid desert. Each individual composition features a vibrant mix of patterns used by cultures who live in those landscapes. This piece marked the first time the Franklin sisters had the opportunity to collaborate professionally, merging Eroyn’s bold shapes and patterns with Tory’s detailed line drawings.
Kate Sweeney. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, 2015. Digitally printed vinyl film. Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: Richard Nicol
Tory Franklin and Eroyn Franklin. Fecund, 2015. Digitally printed vinyl film. Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: Richard Nicol
Celeste Cooning. Peaks and Valleys, 2015. Digitally printed vinyl film. Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: Richard Nicol

About the Location

Harborview Medical Center

For more than a century, Harborview Medical Center has functioned as a unique community and regional resource. It is a county hospital, a teaching and research institution, a regional trauma and burn center, and the primary health care provider for many low-income and disenfranchised people in the community. Harborview embraces its mission of treating everybody…

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