FALL PROGRAMMING HIGHLIGHTS
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A scene from "Who Are We? Raleigh's People in Portraits," a series of multimedia workshops offered by the Pullen Art Center through our Catalyzing Creative Aging initiative with the National Guild. (Credit: Teresa Moore)
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This year, hundreds of older Americans across the country have taken part in Creative Aging programming for which we have provided program design, training, and technical assistance, such as
The Catalyzing Creativity initiative in New York City, funded by the Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation;
Catalyzing Creative Aging, offered in partnership with the National Guild for Community Arts Education;
Creative Aging in Westchester County, funded by the Westchester Community Foundation; and two
Seeding Vitality Arts initiatives (U.S. and Minnesota) funded by
Aroha Philanthropies.
Visit our
Fall 2018 Highlights post to view photos from a selection of these workshops held recently in New York, Michigan, and North Carolina.
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“Thank you for realizing how giving a senior a chance to tap into his/her creativity brings an opportunity to once again explore a side of themselves they may have thought was lost.”
– Joan Hawkins, Participant, Fashion & Fiber: A Creative Aging Experience, West Michigan Center for the Arts & Technology
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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & TRAINING
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In October and November, Lifetime Arts trained hundreds of teaching artists and staff members from arts organizations, senior and community centers in New York, Maryland, and Minnesota. We trained community center staff at the
YMCA of Greater Syracuse; museum educators from 20 institutions across the U.S. as part of Aroha Philanthropies'
Seeding Vitality Arts in Museums initiative, offered in partnership with the
American Alliance of Museums, in Minneapolis; arts organization staff at a pre-conference workshop during the
National Guild for Community Arts Education's annual meeting in Baltimore; and we continued training teaching artists and arts organization staff in New York City as part of our work with
The New York Community Trust,
LiveOn NY, and
Dr. Ruth Finkelstein of the Brookdale Center on Aging at Hunter College.
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"The Creative Aging workshop was the perfect combination of inspiration, practical application, and future planning. The staff from Lifetime Arts, AAM, and Aroha Philanthropies were outstanding, conveying both a passion for social justice as well a value for the arts in the museum context...The inclusive nature of instructional teaching values older adults as legitimate (and capable!) learners; and while the focus is not inherently therapeutic, the results can be nothing short of magical...I also feel challenged to be more forward-thinking, both personally (with grandparents/parents) as well as professionally, in how I engage and enable older adults."
– Taylor Burnham, Naples Botanical Garden, Naples, FL on the Seeding Vitality Arts in Museums Training, Minneapolis, MN
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Stakeholder Group Identified for our Online Course in Creative Aging Programming
Lifetime Arts is grateful to the state library agencies from
Florida,
Iowa,
North Carolina,
Wyoming, and
Virginia each of whom have joined our stakeholder group. This group will provide feedback on topics such as access and reporting, content and tools, user experience, dissemination, and internal marketing.
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Bringing Creative Aging to TAP
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Lifetime Arts is proudly teaming up with the Teaching Artist Project (TAP) Cohort
, a division of Community-Word Project (CWP). TAP is a comprehensive training and internship hosted by CWP and designed to prepare artists to bring their craft into K-12 classrooms. Our participation will expose more teaching artists to the exciting field of Creative Aging, and perhaps inspire them to work in an artistic endeavor they may have never considered.
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CREATIVE AGING FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITY
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On October 25th, our Executive Director, Ed Friedman, delivered the opening Keynote Address, “Creative Aging in Community Settings” at the
Brookdale Foundation Group’s 2018 Annual Conference held at the Marriott Hotel in Teaneck, New Jersey. The conference was attended by over 200 people representing organizations from 35 states. And, on November 3rd, Lifetime Arts’ CEO, Maura O’Malley, and Teresa Bonner, Executive Director of Aroha Philanthropies, presented a set of briefings at the
National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) 50th Anniversary Assembly in Baltimore.
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Coming up in January 2019, our director of education, Annie Montgomery, will deliver a talk titled, "The Transformational Power of the Arts in Aging" at
LiveOn NY's 29th Annual Conference on Aging and Vendor Expo. Montgomery will talk about the positive benefits of arts learning for older adults and how Lifetime Arts is training senior service, community, cultural organizations and teaching artist to be prepared to offer the highest quality arts learning programs for their older adult participants.
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DAVID DE BLIECK IS OUR TEACHING ARTIST OF THE MONTH
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David DeBlieck is a teaching artist and dancer in St. Cloud, MN. David has been co-teaching a weekly dance class with the
Paramount Center for the Arts for an amazing and vibrant group of dancers at Whitney Senior Center in St Cloud, MN, as part of Aroha Philanthropies' Seeding Vitality Arts in Minnesota initiative.
In early December David's group of dancers will celebrate the work of their 9-week workshop by performing a range of dances — African-Haitian, ballet, and tango as well as original compositions.
Read more about David's career, his path to Creative Aging, and for insights on teaching dance to blended classes of older adults and college students.
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RESPONSES TO LAST MONTH'S READER POLL
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Last month we polled subscribers to this newsletter to ask how this communication could better serve their needs. Below are responses to some of the topics you raised.
Finding Creative Aging Programs in Your Area
While Lifetime Arts trains people at libraries, museums, arts organizations, community and senior centers, to deliver great Creative Aging Programs, program marketing and registration for individual workshops are handled by those organizations. Our best advice to those seeking information about which organizations in your area are offering Creative Aging Workshops is to contact your local arts council, council on aging, and library (or visit their websites) to learn more.
Why Not Offer One-off Sessions vs. Sequential Workshop Series?
While it might feel logical to want to offer artmaking opportunities to as many older adults in your community as possible via one-off, drop-in sessions, the effectiveness of Creative Aging workshops stems from the facts that participants benefit from professionally designed and taught sequential, skill-building curricula, and do so among a cohort of peers with whom they bond. One-off sessions can be fun, positive experiences, but don't yield the same type of lasting benefits as workshop series do.
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Finding and Hiring Teaching Artists / Preparing to Teach Arts to Older Adults
Two related topics that were submitted centered around how teaching artists new to Creative Aging can get themselves set up to teach older adults, and how those who are looking to hire teaching artists might find them.
In both cases, one place to start is
Lifetime Arts’ Creative Aging Roster
, a free public service which offers an evolving national online directory of teaching artists who are peer reviewed and qualified to design and deliver instructional arts programs for older adults. Teaching artists may review the application guidelines which explain what is required in terms of qualifications. Program and activity coordinators may begin to search the Roster for teaching artists in their area. Local and state arts councils and agencies are also great sources for finding teaching artists.
Thank you.
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