In September 2006, nationally known artist Jim Draper unveiled the "Ribbon of Life" series at Baptist Heart Hospital.

The series is Draper's visual pilgrimage through the natural beauty of Northeast Florida, as depicted in 22 paintings lining the corridor that connects the Heart Hospital's Harden Cardiovascular Center with the Baptist Medical Center Downtown rotunda.

The paintings are a farewell gift from Carol Thompson, former executive vice president of Baptist Health and president of Baptist Health Foundation, given upon her retirement in March 2006, in tribute to caregivers and patients of Baptist Health. Draper donated a portion of his artwork.

You can own a part of the "Ribbon of Life" by purchasing prints, note cards and other pieces depicting its striking and colorful scenes. Part of the proceeds will benefit Baptist Health.

Jim Draper's "Ribbon of Life" artwork and Order Form (prints and note cards)

About Jim Draper
Jim Draper grew up in Kosciusko, Mississippi, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Mississippi in 1974. During his Master of Fine Arts graduate work at the University of Georgia in Athens in the mid 1970s, Draper studied with Elaine de Kooning, an influential abstract expressionist painter.

Draper was immediately receptive to de Kooning's emphasis on the "importance of assembling a body of work with serial imagery." The significance of multiples is evidenced throughout his career. Draper explains that, "by reworking a particular image over and over, I was able to come to an understanding of the form and reach somewhere that sublimated the image and went to another place." He readily admits why he sticks with a particular subject: "Once you've settled on the content and general composition within a format, it releases you to explore the pleasure of painting, to really jump into the proces...You're free to play with color, texture, and surface and all of us who came out of abstract expressionism are mainly interested in surface."

Draper's attraction to the Florida land and seascapes took root when he began visiting Cumberland Island. "I started to really notice the palm trees on Cumberland, which are so tenacious and elegant. You seldom see a toppled palm tree, yet they live in the most adverse conditions and are very adaptable. I began to see a single trunk or group of palm trees as a very stable, soothing, solid image, a quiet place for me to go in the whirlwind of my life, maintaining my hectic family and work schedule. There's also, in the solitary palms, an element of isolation, of not being 'part of the crowd.' And there's an awkwardness that sometimes also arises in my images of hands or birds."

For Draper, each painting -- swan, egret, person and or tree -- becomes a "portrait," raw, naked and isolated in a matrix of saturated color. A sought-out addition for private and corporate collections internationally, Draper's fascination with nature's symbols of tenacious, enduring strength reveals his sense of respect and wonder for everything around him.