Traveling Art Showcase Celebrates Aging

SYRACUSE, N.Y (CITRUSTV NEWS) — From the Syracuse airport to the Le Moyne College Library, Arts and Minds, a showcase for creative aging, is moving all over central New York. 

The showcase features weaving, poetry, watercolor and more from older adults, including those living with dementia. 

“We tend to do more abstract work in our group. It allows for that creativity without feeling like you have to replicate something specific, especially when you don’t have an art background,” said Hannah Pietra, Arts and Minds Coordinator and a Clinician at Syracuse Jewish Family Service (SJFS).

Syracuse Jewish Family Services is the organization that facilitates arts, aging and dementia programs, the programs that yielded the art for this showcase. 

“It’s a very special type of relationship working with the artists. You really appreciate how far they’ve come in their artistic abilities and just their social capacities with one another,” said Casper Vural, Art Therapy Intern at SJFS.

People like Pietra and Vural lead and support art projects among aging adults, but believe it is more than just making art. A key goal of this traveling showcase is to reduce stigma and negative connotations on aging by allowing creative expression later on in life.

“This art show is a part of our overall Arts and Minds initiative, which is to bring more arts programming to older adults, specifically those with memory loss and also break stereotypes in the community,” said Pietra.

Facilitators have seen firsthand the positive impact that creating art has had on elder artists.

“It creates a sense of pride in what you’re creating. The more you are exposed to what you’re making and the more you get to have agency over where it goes,”said Vural. 

The showcase will remain in the Wilson Art Gallery at Le Moyne College until March 27th.

Reporter: Grace McCloskey