Into the Garden

After three classes, and lots of behind-the scenes prep, my Alzheimer's group's summer project is done. 

Final piece

Six weeks ago they painted over 50 butterflies, pre-cut with a Tim Holtz die.

marathon painting session - I still have more!

They glued the butterflies on to blue card stock, then painted the background and the butterflies with acrylics. At home, I built these into a wall piece, connected in back with packing tape, and stripped vertically with yellow to build out the width.

Painted and assembled, ready for collage

The bright lines served to guide today's project: adding leaves and flowers.

I like that the black marker shows on some of the leaves

 I arrived with glue, brushes, pre-cut flowers, fun foam, scissors, markers, stick-on dots. A cornucopia of art supplies. 

this woman stuck all her flowers together

 Seven residents gathered at the table. As the hour progressed, folks sorted themselves into tasks. Some like cutting, others gluing, others preferred to work with the less sticky dots. The very talkative person settled into her chosen project. The quietest person stood beside me and worked on placing leaves.

Notice the lovely circles and crosses in the background

 At the end of the class I held the entire piece up. You could hear the intake of breath. "It's lovely." "Look at all the colors." "Who made that?" "It's profound."

Dots were added to the butterflies and backbround

 I laid the piece back on the table. Aides came over. Everyone stayed to joke and admire.

Circle stickers for flower centers

The curmudgeon of the group looked me in the eye: "You did a great job. Someone should tell you that."

 Leading Alzheimer's classes is like doing improve. Just say yes, and take it to the next level.

Add and Subtract

The track of memories has drawn me to this photo, taken by my father over 50 years ago. Me and my big sister, in matching outfits made by my mother's mom.

Easter bonnets. Easter flowers.

  

 Old photos often serve me as source for sketch book explorations. 

Recently I realized that even  my rudimentary Photoshop skills were enough to manipulate images on the computer.

experimenting with addition and subtraction

What to add, what to remove, to evoke change, loss, memory?

three layers of past tense images

Every idea is a branching path.

I picked this one to follow this spring.

Layered image, reversed for transfer printing

Printed and transferred onto vintage tea napkin, the image argued with earlier random dying. It ached for color. So I painted, collaged, and stitched.

After a month's rest, that seemed too chaotic. Perhaps I'm responding to the news. It seemed important to bring more unity, to echo pattern, to calm and center the piece.

12x12, mixed media, mounted on board

What do you think? Finished now?

Make a Bird of Poetry

Found poems and art started our class last night at Arlington Center for the Arts. That reminded me of an installation I'd read about, poetry re-imagined as a flock of birds. Tonight I tracked it down: Virginia Fitzgerald:  

You too can make a Bird of Poetry

 

The idea of words taking wing: would that work with my Elder students, I wonder? I shall sit down and try some prototypes. Just as soon as the studio is cleared of scarves, cards, and small art, all ready to launch for the holidays.

Found poetry collage

The Arlington Center for the Arts collage class started last night making cards.

Barbara: blues and yellows this term

They each got a card, a page from an old children's mystery, and 30 minutes.

We talked briefly about the steps involved: how to get past the page to the words that moved you; how to step from there to a ground that supported your text.

My class sample

What felt odd quickly morphed into delight in their talented hands.

Nancy: complex found imagery

An assignment that felt odd quickly transformed to intriguing in their capable hands.

Caroline: wolves, dense surface, imbedded questions

 Each card reflected the personality its maker.

Judy: ocean colors, vistas

 The goal: relax, work fast, leap past the tired monkey brain to joy.

Beth: rich colors, warm heart

 I think it worked.

Deborah: direct and yet unexpected

 "Is this what the Valentine's workshop will like?" 

Yes, but with lots of pink and red, hearts and flowers.

Kathy: tiny window, rich view

 These folks are a joy. They support each other. They work hard.

Appreciating the results

Wonderful, creative women.  

So much talent, such different voices.

One more week together. The term has flown by.

Free Form Collage

Experiment with shape and line

My students continue to amaze me.

Prints and bits

After six weeks, they still bring their full attention to class, diving into assignments.
We've made stamps and stencils, printed with gelli plates, abstracted from images and developed themes. I learn so much from their different approaches.

Miniatures in progress

 This year I've encouraged the students to work on multiple pieces simultaneously. This is a stretch, especially at the end of the day. But it frees you.  You no longer need to find  to find The Right Answer. Instead, many answers appear.

Lollipop Tree series inspired by vintage fabrics and 1800s textbook

Stillness and fascination with texture

Thumbnails from photos

The class is so full of ideas it makes me giddy.

 Wolf and Spirit theme

 

Experiment with lines and layers

They bring so much to the class. They encourage each other, and challenge me. Transformative Thursdays, for all of us.

Elder Art: Collage

Scraps from my studio become art supplies

I brought a pile of autumn-hued fabric scraps to my art classes this week.

Adding leaves to a painted ground

Folks were surprised  that fabric could be an art supply. They loved the colors, the textures. Several noticed the silks and the remnants of hand-dyed table cloths. This is the generation that treasured those linens. 

This student, usually hesitant, often disappointed, loved the process.

a rich scene

For the Alzheimer's patients, however, tasks remained discrete. Think about it: gluing is made up of many steps. It requires a sense of what is possible in the immediate future, and that's just what Alzheimer's robs away. 

Every student needed one-on-one attention to get anything glued to paper. Then, the collaged image didn't hold together in their eyes. "It looks like blobs. There's too much white."

 So we backed up and worked on the processes that made sense to each person.

Trimming a rough edge

Adding leaves to a painting

A bit of green linen for ground

Adding color to the background

One woman painted the tree's edges green.  I handed her a brush with orange paint on it, and she carefully over-painted all the leaves.

a second layer of color

 Then she painted the trunk orange. And smiled a huge smile.

I come home to world news and this work seems so small. But it requires time, attention, patience, creativity and quantities of love. We could all use more of that.

 "Your class is a constant in a sea of change," a director assured me. "What you do makes them happy. We see the effects for hours afterwards."

Alzheimer's project: a Garden View

  

One of my employers asked for a project that was "anything fiber." She showed me pieces in the Assisted Living art room.  I could tell they had been made by more fully functioning hands and minds. How to bring the same processes to my Alzheimer's patients?


With Alzheimer's groups, abilities are all over the map.  I  wanted everyone, even those at the far ends of the spectrum, to feel success.

The Concerns that Shaped This Project

• Impaired vision.  Alzheimer's can make it hard to interpret shapes. Dark objects on a light ground made designs easier to "read."
• Arthritic hands. Don't assume people can (or can't) use scissors. I cut out leaves and flowers  defined enough to satisfy some folks, but loose enough to encourage others, who could, to "edit" them. Also, I brought my good fabric scissors.
• Immobility. For many, movement is a struggle. After considering several ways to  make the project collaborative (rotate the pieces among students? Work together in the middle of the table?) I borrowed from the quilt tradition, and  pre-cut background squares to distribute.
• Unreliable short-term memory.  A surprising lesson has been that gluing can confuse Alzheimer's folks. Too many steps. So I pre-fused all fabric and brought my own iron, then pressed each collage as it was finished.
• The blank page problem. An empty page stops folks. To guide participants, I adhered "stems" to each block beforehand. This also embedded an over-all design, so the pieces worked well together.
• Life in a locked ward. All those walls. I wanted this piece to feel like a virtual window.

I tested the idea with another class. Biggest discovery: The most mentally adept worked carefully, trimming shapes and perfecting placement.

More impaired students filled the page and finished quickly.

 

So I prepared lots of materials and brought at least two background squares for each artist. On the big day, each person completed at least one square. The most impaired artists finishing three pieces each. I wrote their names down on the pieces as they finished.

Several folks stayed afterwards, to look at the finished pieces. They marveled at how good everything looked together. We talked about different ways to organize them.  Amazing. For me, perhaps the most satisfying moment.

The next week, I sewed the squares together, fused and stitched the result to batting, then backed, bound and labeled it. I took the piece to a long meeting, where I embroidered the residents' names.  A sleeve and wired board readied it for hanging.

 

 It will look even lovelier when winter sets in.