Ina’s painting style has stayed consistent with her personality traits. She is smiling and free. Those with Alzheimer’s appear to be the most free and happy when they are “in the moment”. This is what makes art and painting so effective. Ina did not ponder what she was going to do or what she wanted it to look like. She painted from what proceeded from inside at the moment.
Bernard had picture in his mind that he could not explain. He wanted to paint it. The title, he said, would be “A Fantastic Christmas”. As I left him alone with paints and brush, a picture emerged quickly. He pointed to the teepee, the Indian and the fire. The snow also gave him a sense of “the fantastic”. I love the happy vibrations that emote from the finished picture.
Doris is in the habit of quietly sitting in front of an empty page of watercolor paper for up to an hour before she picks up the brush. I am aware that the creative juices are being stirred. Without fanfare, she starts painting and a landscape emerges in a very short time. Each landscape is a different color hue. “This is a fallen tree at dusk” she said. I held it up in front of her and asked if she was happy with it. She nodded her head and said that the trunk needed to be wider. She fell asleep before she could finish. The picture is still very charming. The painting pictured below is a tree that she painted very quickly all in blue.
David was a newspaper photographer for most of his life. He is now has dementia and is also stuck using a wheelchair in a nursing home with dementia. We were painting on large pieces of cardboard with large brushes in one of our sessions. He painted a stormy sky with blues and grays. He stated he was finished, but then took a brush, dipped it in yellow paint and stroked in a lightening bolt. The surprise was that the lightning bolt turned green as soon as it went on top of the blue. He didn’t seem to be troubled by it. He turned it into a green cactus in the storm and when it dried, he painted pink flowers on it. He titled it “A Flowering Cactus in the Storm”
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!
