Tuesday Book Review: “Healing Walls”

Book reviews are a great way for self-publishing authors to gain exposure. After all, how can someone buy your book if he or she doesn’t know it exists? Paired with other elements of your book promotion strategy, requesting reviews is a great way to get people talking about what you’ve written.

When we read good reviews, we definitely like to share them. It gives the author a few (permanent) moments of fame and allows us to let the community know about a great book. Here’s this week’s book review:

healing walls rea nurmi

cipa evvy 2nd place

Healing Walls

by Rea Nurmi

ISBN: 9781478785132

Opening new horizons to those whose lives are restricted. Healing Walls features the therapeutic side of Rea Nurmi’s work, which blends her skill as an artist with her love of vibrant colors and peaceful, natural settings. Her murals are designed and created to provide a liberating experience for patients, visitors and staff in the clinical environment of hospitals and other medical facilities. She describes her art projects as drab walls bursting alive with color and movement. Large works of gardens and other nature scenes relax and sooth both staff and patients in hospitals, nursing homes and other health facilities and schools. Rea paints alone or in collaboration with staff, patients and residents. Her intention is to bring color and light into the world and take the art where it is most needed. The first mural was done in the MRI unit at Yale New Haven Hospital. Others are located in major cities in Europe and her native Finland.

* courtesy of Amazon.com

Featured Review

“See when you start at Yale, doors open.”

Thank you, everyone, who participated in our event with Finnish artist and now writer Rea Nurmi! The atmosphere was warm and intimate and Nurmi talked about her new book Healing Walls and showed us photos of the colourful walls she has painted with patients of hospitals, retirement homes and detention centres while guests enjoyed her lively personality and storytelling together with some cheeses, crackers and fruit. You can find a recording of the presentation online on our Facebook page!

“It’s no glamour work, I tell you!”

Rea Nurmi is a painter who has produced and exhibited artwork since 1987. She divides her time between Helsinki, Finland and St Petersburg, Florida. She was born in Helsinki, Finland, where she graduated from the Structural Design Institute. In 1973 she moved to the US and worked as a designer in engineering firms in CT.

Nurmi’s journey as an artist began in 1986. She left her engineering studies and her work as a designer for a life adventure that took her travelling half-way around the world for several months: hiking in New Zealand, scuba diving off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, exploring the beaches of Hawaii, and discovering Tahiti’s Moorea Island in the South Pacific. Inspired by her travels, upon returning home, she decided to devote all of her time to art.

Through the years, Nurmi’s paintings have been displayed in solo exhibitions in New York City, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Boston, Helsinki and many other locations. Her work has also been featured in galleries throughout New England, in corporate collections in New York City. In 2011 she moved to St Petersburg, FL and she teaches a pastel class at the OLLI program at Eckerd College main campus.

Healing Walls features the therapeutic side of Nurmi’s work, which blends her skills as an artist with her love of vibrant colors and peaceful, natural settings. Her murals are designed and created to provide a liberating experience for patients, visitors, and staff in the clinical environment of hospitals and other medical facilities.