Dan Cook, a Franklin photographer, stands next to two of his pieces hanging inside the Johnson Memorial Hospital Cancer Care Center. Cook has donated more than 50 of his photographs to brighten the interior of the cancer center, where he is currently undergoing treatment for a blood disorder.
RYAN TRARES | DAILY JOURNAL
Like windows to a better place, the photographs lining the walls of the Johnson Memorial Health Cancer Care Center evoke a strong sense of calm.
Wildflowers grow in multicolored majesty in a Greenwood field. The setting sun outlines a skeletal tree in Stone Arch Lake. Golden leaves surround aging barns in Franklin, Nashville and beyond.
Dan Cook has found great joy in capturing these images over the years. His hope is the photographs bring comfort to those — like himself — who are fighting every day to beat back cancer.
“There are a lot of sick people who walk through the doors, and I’m one of them. Hopefully, it will uplift the people, the patients and their families,” he said.
Cook, working with the Johnson Memorial Health Foundation, has provided 55 of his photographs to line the hallways, waiting room, offices and exam rooms inside the cancer center. As he undergoes treatment for his own blood disorder, he wants to enliven the space he and other patients spend so much of their time in.
”A lot of people who are patients at the cancer center spend a lot of time here,” said Kelsey Kasting, executive director of the Johnson County Hospital Foundation. “We’re excited the patients of the cancer center specifically get to see this every day and break up their day.”
Cook, a 1967 graduate of Franklin Community High School, worked for more than 40 years in the landscape business, so he understands the beauty of nature. He had owned Rockcreek Farm, a landscaping design, nursery and garden center in Columbus with his wife, Sally, and retired in 2013 to focus exclusively on his art and photography.
His love of flowers and nature is evident in his work.
In his travels near and far, he has photographed the Golden Gate Bridge, stood under towering sequoia trees in Redwood National Park and captured the rain forests of the Cascade Mountains. Cook is also drawn to the natural beauty in his own figurative backyard — a waterfall in Anderson Park in Columbus, colorful blooms at Iris Hill Gardens in Edinburgh, the tranquil Broadway Fountain in downtown Madison.
Cook has shown his work at B3 Gallery in Nashville, as well as opening his own home in Franklin for exhibitions. As the COVID-19 pandemic brought life to a standstill, he was searching for a project to keep him busy. To get outdoors around the state, he decided to put together a book, “Indiana Inspirations.”
“I did so many Western photographs of the national parks, I wanted to do just Indiana. So I traveled from Indianapolis down to Madison, and from Franklin to Martinsville to put all of this together,” he said.
Starting in 2022 and spanning two years, Cook took more than 150 photographs all over Indiana, in all four seasons. He captured carefully budding trees in the spring, colorful gardens in summer, robust pumpkins in the fall and dark, bare trees juxtaposed by clean white snow.
Many of the photos for the work were edited to look almost like Impressionist paintings.
“I used to paint, and I wanted to do something different with these photographs,” he said.
Those photographs were arranged by season into a book, which Cook finished in 2022. He also had 60 of the photographs made into canvases to hang at B3 Gallery.
Right around the same time, Cook became seriously ill. He was diagnosed with myelodysplasia anemia, a blood disorder in which the bone marrow no longer produces red blood cells. He started monthly treatments at Johnson Memorial Health Cancer Care Center in 2023, which required monthly blood infusions, transfusions and iron treatments.
As he arrived for his second treatment, Cook realized how bare the walls around the center were.
“There was very little art on the walls, and the hallways were very dark. It was not a happy environment for cancer patients,” he said.
The treatment prevented Cook from maintaining his gallery space in Nashville, and he was at a loss for what to do with all of the canvas photographs he now had.
A perfect solution quickly came to him.
“Architecturally, this place just looks like an art gallery, the way it flows,” he said. “I thought, I had close to 70 canvases sitting in my closets. Why not ask the foundation, if I donated them, if they’d hang them and frame them.”
Cook approached Dr. Stephen Eberwine, oncologist and director of the cancer center, to inquire about displaying his artwork. Together, they met with Kasting to see if the Johnson Memorial Hospital Foundation would partner with him to have his work on the walls.
The foundation raises money to benefit Johnson Memorial Hospital in improving the health of the community, often in the form of health-related education and services. Providing money to frame and mount the canvases seemed like a positive way to help patients, Kasting said.
“We’re excited for all of the patients to be able to enjoy these pictures from around Indiana,” she said.
Starting in November, Cook, Eberwine, Kasting and members of the hospital facilities staff started hanging photographs on the cancer center walls. Cook tried to find the perfect fit for each one.
Around the waiting room, he mounted images of fiery sunsets and vivid flowers. The hallways are lined with blue morning glories, swans swimming in a summer pond and a butterfly on purple blooms. Tranquil rivers and covered bridges provide calming atmosphere in the exam rooms.
“I tried to do the floor plan, the layout — I probably have about 100 layouts,” he said.
The photographs have been mounted throughout the center, and Cook is working on having nameplates installed at each one. A copy of “Indiana Inspirations” is also set up in the cancer center waiting room for patients to flip through.
Cook’s work is still available at Generations Art & Frame in Franklin, as well as at Brown County Art Gallery in Nashville. His book can be found on Amazon.
He’s been pleased to see how the project has unfolded and hopes other people get something from it as well.
“I can’t donate my time anymore, and I had this, so I thought it was my way to leave a legacy,” Cook said.
