Creative Arts for Older Adults

Creative Arts for Older Adults

Most of us have heard of Grandma Moses.

At 76, she gave up embroidering because of arthritis, and she picked up a paint brush.

Long story short:  One of Grandma Moses’ paintings now hangs in the White House.  Another sold for over a million dollars.

Every day, because of programs offered by senior care providers, older adults are picking up paint brushes, some for the very first time.  They are also grabbing cameras, acting in plays, writing poetry, playing music and singing, and more.

There may not be a Grandma Moses within every older adult.  But, certainly inside everyone there is a desire to express oneself, and to be creative, in spite of the fact that aging and frailty may have brought impairment or physical or mental limitation.

I’ve spoken on several occasions with Nancy Ferrara, who runs the VillageCare Adult Day Health Center on Greenwich Street.  Nancy’s program works hard to bring the arts into the lives of older adults, not just to give the participants a sense of achievement, which it does.   More than that, Nancy says she feels that those in her program “should be able to live among the beauty that is art.”

While the focus of adult day health care is often seen from the “health” end -- on services such as nursing, rehabilitation, personal care, nutrition and health monitoring -- the participant’s sense of well-being is also high on the list.  Through recreational therapy, the West Village center offers sculpture, photography, poetry, painting, drawing, singing and dancing.

The presence and activity of these creative arts, Nancy says, “brings happiness and comfort where there may otherwise be none.”

Participation in a creative undertaking brings much into the lives of older adults.  Besides the fact that it can simply be fun, and be enjoyable, it’s stimulating and personally fulfilling and improves the individual’s overall quality of life.

“Expressions of art that we may take for granted don’t always come so easily to our seniors, who are often isolated, depressed or unable to afford the arts,” Nancy says of the individuals in her program.

So she seeks to involve them in whatever ways they can at the center.

“Our daily walking groups take with them digital cameras so that they can take photographs of what they interpret to be beauty and life around them,” Nancy said as an example of how they incorporate art into an everyday activity.

“The creativity and beauty that is seen through their eyes is quite amazing,” she says of the photography work of the seniors.  

For this year, the VillageCare center made a color calendar with a collection of the photos taken by the seniors in their strolls through the West Village environs in 2009, which they have shared with friends and family, as well as with volunteers and supporters of the program.

Just recently, the center submitted some artworks to the 20th Art Show and Exhibit in Albany for the New York Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (NYAHSA).   Three of the submissions received staff choice awards and one was given a certificate of merit by NYAHSA judges.  Two of the artworks are now part of a traveling exhibit.

Nancy said that the center is also working with the program participants in creating boxed sets of gift notes with a mix of photos and artwork, which will be given to those who make a small suggested donation to help support the photography and art programs.

The arts, Nancy feels, can help individuals who have been removed and isolated “to come alive again.”

Frequent visits to the center by dancing and singing groups involve the participants as well as entertain them.  Even those who are in wheelchairs or who have some debilitative condition are able to participate.  And it helps the older adults at the center build friendships, while enhancing their mental alertness and emotional fitness.