I obtain large pieces of cardboard for free from Cannon Industries. They are painted white and placed on easels for those who are in Alzheimer Units to paint on. I give them big brushes and let them go with the color. Ann, one of the residents, painted with yellow and was finished. Because we had a group who was watching and commenting, together we developed it into a sailboat picture. That is what the spontaneous shapes of yellow reminded us of. It had turned into a group art project and I like the result.

One day, I was relaxing in the sunroom of a rehabilitation facility, I looked at the vibrant Fall colors outside. I decided it was time to get my watercolors out of my car and set up my art. As I began painting, many in wheelchairs came rolling in. My aim was not to have anyone watch me, but curious eyes were all around me, watching the colors flow. I soaked up the energy that was surrounding me and came up with a picture that I really like. I went back on another day and painted with the residents, one by one. It was a happy time.

Doris does not talk very much. She smiles a lot, especially when she is in an atmosphere where people are creating. She had painted some beautiful landscapes in her past. Curious to see if her talent was retrievable, I brought her into the activity room three different times when we painted. She sat for almost an hour each time without putting a stroke on the paper I had placed in front of her. She sat there and smiled and observed. I did not say anything to her. She didn’t say anything to me. The third time she was in our art group, she quietly picked up a paintbrush and painted a beautiful landscape. It was not labored over. She wasn’t coaxed or coached. It emerged.

I finally saw what was within Doris. It was more than words. Is it not true that a picture is worth a thousand words?

When painting recreationally without inhibition, the inner self naturally comes out. A large piece of card board was placed in front of Catherine with her choice of colors. Catherine’s art evolved like a well-rounded symphony…especially when she was doing it. Her brush, unintentionally, it seems, became a baton and she was waving the colors onto the painting rhythmically. When she got ahold of the pink, she was dabbing it on with an artistic flair. “A little here, and a little up here,” she said as she jabbed her brush in the upper left-hand corner. I found out later that Catherine’s long life was lived immersed in music. She played the marimba most of her life and taught and directed children’s choirs. That explains a lot!

“Painting is so other people can see what your thoughts are. I don’t think about what I am going to do… I just get quiet and the thoughts come out through the paint. It’s a surprise.”

Ardis quickly identified with me when we did art together. We found ourselves at a table painting, each one of us in our own little worlds. She is 90 years old and paints out of her soul. She is not concerned with her art being a little different….almost surreal. She is going for the “process”….the process of creating… creating in the moment….not even planning it all out….just letting her picture evolve.

She looked at me while I was painting and called me a “thwarted messer arounder” I asked her what she meant. She said, “You are living the creative life as an adult, the life that was thwarted in you as a child.” I said, “How did YOU know?”

She looked at me with penetrating eyes and said, “I don’t know how I knew that. I just do.”

Perhaps she was thwarted in some ways too, and she now has time and freedom to paint what she calls whimsical paintings. The one below started with a memory of when she and her best friend took their cats and dolls into the woods and had a picnic. What started out to be a tree turned into a rainbow. She added more “figurines” later.