Care Home Murals has recently finished installing a series of murals at St Luke’s Care Home in Caversham, part of B&M Care Group.
Michael Potter, director, Care Home Murals, says: “B&M Care Group has commissioned a number of murals from us since 2016 and each has been a new and interesting artistic challenge.
“Kim Franks, the manager at St Luke’s, has clear ideas about the sort of wall imagery she believes will work best for her residents. She is well aware of the wide variety and type of wall art and murals that are available on the market and keeps a close eye on trends in the UK and abroad.”
Kim Frank’s vision was to create a colourful, visual and tactile experience to provide not only a bright and refreshing environment for residents to enjoy but also to encourage reminiscence about past family holidays. The backdrop would be a large wallpaper mural of a typical beach scene, featuring bright sunshine colours, around which would be placed all sorts of three-dimensional and meaningful ‘holiday’ memorabilia.
Mr Potter continues: “Our usual (and successful) approach of incorporating beautiful photographic scenes in the designs obviously wasn’t going to work for this project. For starters, with a wall length of over seven metres, finding suitable photo imagery was likely to be distinctly problematic, so we clearly had to go back to the artistic ‘drawing board’.
“Kim went to great lengths to discuss both her ideas and our proposals with her team and residents. She also monitors how residents engage with the murals, giving us valuable feedback to incorporate into each new commission for St Luke’s. As a result, we determined that the mural needed to be light, bright and uncomplicated, making it easily approachable for residents. We also needed to convey the ‘essence’ of the seaside rather than represent a specific beach location, to give residents more scope to engage with the scenery in their own special way.”
As a result of these discussions, a new approach was adopted. Line drawings and simple colours were used to produce very clear imagery as often seen in children’s book illustrations. Familiar motifs and easily recognisable features were used to evoke the sense of a timeless seaside scene easily accessible to the viewer.
Kim Franks says: “All of our murals promote reminiscence and way finding and create a light, bright and cheerful atmosphere for the residents who live here as well as staff and visitors. When Mike came up with the idea of illustrating our vision rather than using photographs, it allowed everyone to be involved creatively, with residents and staff being able to have input into the design, which was exciting.”
The finished ‘Seaside’ mural has been a great success, meeting all the necessary requirements as well as being well received by residents, staff and visitors. A recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) report, which rated St Luke’s as an ‘outstanding’ home, was also extremely complementary about the mural.
Potter adds: “Following this success we are delighted to have been commissioned by St Luke’s to produce a second and even more adventurous set of garden themed murals for a lounge and dining area within the dementia unit.”
