Dancing Hands and Creative Souls

We have “community art” going on in the back lounge of our Nursing Center. I picture it like a living room with people in and out doing all kinds of fun activities in art, music, and creative conversation. I aim for it to be homelike. Our long term residents who are not able to go out depend on this. When children come to visit a loved one, I zero in on them and invite them to join a group of us for art or a rhythm band or something. Their energy brings the room to life as we create. Last night, we created “group cartoons”. Several of our Alzheimer’s patients were there, mostly soaking up the creative ambiance of the activity…and the laughter. Take a look at two of our drawings!

Jerry claims that he only did stick figures when he was young. Now he has advanced to realistic looking faces, tractors, and things he has memories of. He built log cabins before he became disabled with Parkinsons. He recently painted a very realistic log cabin. His fun-loving side brings out unusual color combinations in his series of monster paintings. He is holding a painting he did of the Dodge truck which he used to drag race. He titles it “A Truck in the Muck”. As he paints he remember many wonderful times. “Painting makes me feel good,” he says. When we frame his paintings and place them on the wall they make other people feel good too.

Sue started painting one month ago. Many paintings have come out of her time spent in the art area of the Nursing Center. She is showing her painting that she calls “Soothing Tree”. ”
” I have not painted since I was in school. When I paint, I feel invigorated and happy. When I finish a painting, I keep looking at it, surprised at my talent.” Sue says.
Sue is excited to give her paintings to her kids. Her paintings are very personal and special and of great value. “It’s better than anything I could buy for them”, she says.

We were given a challenge to make something that cost very little for centerpieces for our dining room. No containers? OK. Let's do styrofoam cups. But we don't want it to look like a plain white cup. Spraypaint and scissors fixed that. I pre-cut strips of colored paper and stared forming them into shapes and taping them with double sided tape. It ended up being very social as our residents came in and out all day long, participating and adding ideas. Each of the 20 centerpieces looked different and they are now enjoying color and beauty from the work of their own hands.

Nancy’s emotions come out in unusualy ways through subjects in her paintings. She loves beauty. She loves nature. What she struggles with is being stuck in bed 90% of the time and not able to live the vibrant energetic life that she used to. She is angry about that. Here is one of her paintings. I placed a vase of flowers on the table and asked her if she would like to paint them. She happily painted the beginning of the wonderful bouquet but was sidetracked and started painting caterpillars with scowling faces. I am fascinated by the contrasting emotions shown in this painting. The title she gave it was “Angry Caterpillars”.