Artist repays the Eye Pavilion with gift of paintings

Published on Wednesday 10 September 2008 10:16

AN artist who faced going blind has donated a series of paintings to the Edinburgh medical staff who saved her sight.

Artist Miriam Vickers feared she would lose her sight in one eye two years ago after suffering a complex retinal detachment, but after undergoing major operations at the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion, her sight was restored and she was able to continue painting.

Now, she has created a series of six paintings to line the ward in the hospital where she was once a patient.

The 61-year-old said: "I was in a real mess the first time I came to the Eye Pavilion.

"I really thought I would never see again. I was very scared as all of a sudden life really changed for me.

"Over the next six months I had some real difficulties as the staff here battled to save my eyesight.

"I got so much support from them and this is my way of saying thank you."

Ms Vickers, who has a studio in Stockbridge, said that following her operation she was sitting in the ward when she was able to see a painting on the wall out of the corner of her eye.

She said: "It was a really bad old-fashioned picture and I just thought it was terrible that it was one of the first things I was able to see.

"That was really the very beginning of the idea that I could do something to make a difference for other patients."

A few months after her surgery, Ms Vickers and the Art in Healthcare programme, set about having her paintings displayed in the hospital thanks to funding from the MacRobert Trust and the Scottish Arts Council.

Her work is being hung in ward E2 alongside a series of poems written by award-winning poet Gerry Loose which have been painted on the stairwell of the Eye Pavilion.

Dorothy Grant, charge nurse at the eye hospital,

said: "It's been very positive for some patients who come in here and they can't see much at the start.

"We are able to show them Miriam's paintings when they start to recover and they take some comfort from her achievements.

"It's a real light at the end of the tunnel for them."

Dr Bal Dhillon, clinical director of ophthalmology with NHS Lothian,

said: "What makes this even more special is that the paintings have been created by a former patient."