Imagination & intuition

A friend's mother, a woman edging toward 94 years & experiencing memory challenges, painted this during a creativity workshop at her senior residence.  Am not at all surprised that her daughter was reduced to weeping - it's not that the painting is so remarkably expressive but that it so remarkably expresses Anne!  That is her mother on the canvas, her love of sky & clouds  & colors.

In tribute to Tamar, who connected my dear friend with the workshop, am sharing a link to a terrific article on the effect of the arts on the elderly. 

What a thrill, realizing that I've met Anne Basting, the woman who wrote the article!  It was Thursday morning, at the post-NCCA Conference event at the Kreeger Museum.  Realizing that Anne was there & not knowing who she was, I asked the ever-resourceful Greg Finch to point her out.  Later, I made so bold as to go up & introduce myself.  

The name was familiar, even before I saw her work with The Penelope Project.  Last year, Anne directed a post-conference workshop on Timeslips, which "opens storytelling to everyone by replacing the pressure to remember with the freedom to imagine" (alas, I was across town at the Corcoran, enjoying a workshop with Anthony Hyatt).  Recently, I spotted online mentions of her Penelope Project, which aired recently on PBS.  

 

T'was bliss spending five minutes talking with her about how the arts touch our imagination & intuition, leapfrogging over the parts of the brain affected by dementia et al - the very thing she discusses in the article!  

Life amazes - this a.m., a friend sent a link to a site about Green Houses which irled me over to Dr. Bill Thomas at Changing Age then onward to Next Avenue which got me thinking about Anne & the painting that so beautifully expresses her deepest loves, her truest self.

The arts stir our imagination, touch our intuition, untouched by dementia.  I am reminded of a client of John's, an elderly woman in her mid-nineties, beset with advanced Alzheimer's.  She might only hold a drawing pencil in her hand for a few moments, might only draw a line or two, but her whole being relaxed, her facial muscles lit up. It never failed to astonish him, however fleeting it might have been.

   

The opening of Anne Basting's article goes straight to my heart - "When you receive a serious medical diagnosis, it can feel as though that diagnosis replaces your identity. I am no longer myself — instead, now I am cancer, or heart attack or dementia.  ~  But even when we carry a diagnosis, we also continue to live our lives. We are more than our diseases and care plans.

That is what so many of my older friends dealing with Parkinson's or dementia or other apparently limiting conditions that too often beset the elderly - we are more than our disease, our true imperatives are ignored by care plans that consider our body & ignore our mind, our spirit.  

My friend's art workshop touched HER.  Bravo to her senior residence for offering it, to Tamar for getting her to it, to the art therapist who helped my dear friend blossom, and especially to Anne for releasing such beautiful work for the rest of us to enjoy.  Imagination & intuition - the dynamic duo.

Closing with more words from Anne Basting:

You don’t need to be an artist to use the arts for expression. These tools are available to everyone. Over the last 20 years, I have worked to encourage care partners to communicate with people who have dementia through creativity. The shift from expecting and correcting memory to opening and connecting through imagination can be profound, especially for family members. After years of distance, the arts can help families rekindle an emotional connection.