I go frequently to a facility that has a good mixture of men and women. I find it interesting that the ones who clamor to paint are men. We decided to call in Men’s Club. They gather and paint…and even allow the women to come and watch. As they paint together, they socially bond as they come alive to the arts. Notice that one gentleman is painting a portrait of the other.

One day I set up easels in the lounge of the nursing home where I work. We used large pieces of cardboard and large brushes. The goal is to enjoy the fluidity of the paint and watchthe colors flow. The instructions were “Just have fun with it. You can’t do it wrong.” I then added, “If you don’t like it, you can throw it away and try again.” No pressure. As one of the easels became available, I pushed Netta up to the easel. The nurses were shaking their heads at me. “She can’t do it,” someone whispered in my ear. I thought it wasn’t going to hurt to try. She painted for 45 minutes without stopping. She put paint on top of paint and watched the colors change. Netta, a woman who recently had not been able to focus on anything, was engrossed. The next week, she finished the painting….another 45 minutes.

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?