VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: Arts & Minds keeps locals learning and growing at all ages
GARY STEFFEN: I enjoy making art. I find that what we do in class on Thursdays with Hannah I can bring home and make again or apply it to the art that I do myself at home. She’s put together a variety of different kinds of projects and we like that. She’s even gotten me interested in writing stories and poetry.
BOB REMESZ: I hope what they take away is looking at it–and Gary and I will be there every once in awhile and talking to us and talking to Hannah–that they will see that “Yeah maybe I can do this too!” Especially people who are like my age–I’m in my 70s now–who think “Well I gotta do something but I’m not sure what I can do.” And talking to us and talking to Hannah they get the idea that “Yeah maybe I can do this.”
GARY STEFFEN: I think art has given me something to look forward to. It’s built up my encouragement not to give up, but to continue with what I’m doing.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC NEWS) — Gary Steffen and Bob Remesz are friends involved in Syracuse Jewish Family Service’s Arts & Minds initiative. Every Thursday, they attend the Arts & Minds class, where they do different art activities. Their art, along with that of fellow program participants, is on display at Art in the Atrium as part of “Arts & Minds: A Showcase for Creative Aging” in downtown Syracuse until Oct. 27.
The showcase will travel around Central New York over the next year. While painting and drawing are art staples, the showcase will also feature written work from participants.
“[The program’s] even gotten me interested in writing poetry, which growing up, I really didn’t like in school,” Steffen said.
“Arts & Minds: A Showcase for Creative Aging” is open to the public at Art in the Atrium now until Oct. 27. © 2024 Fei Chan.
Hannah Pietra, a creative arts and music therapist, serves as the coordinator for Arts & Minds and took the lead on putting the showcase together. The showcase is composed of art from several different programs under the Arts & Minds umbrella.
Pietra helps coordinate bringing the art to a variety of spaces, both traditional and non-traditional. As of October, over 4,300 people have been exposed to the showcase since it was launched in April, even if those visiting the spaces may not have had the intention of seeing the art show, according to Pietra.
One highlight for Pietra is hearing people’s praise for the art and inquiring about purchasing the pieces.
“Most of our artists, until they started with our arts and aging program, don’t want to consider themselves artists, so the fact that people want to buy their work is incredible,” Pietra said. “It really just speaks to the program, but also the willingness of these older, elder artists to learn skills that they never thought they were capable of, but are so capable of.”
The classes are taught in a way that “sets participants up for success,” even when Pietra teaches them new techniques and art mediums they’ve never tried before, to allow them to explore their own creative expression.
“[When] they look back at their artwork and they’re proud of it, and they’re amazed at what they created–that just brings me so much joy to see kind of it come out of themselves,” Pietra said.
Steffen, one of the program’s participants of about eight years, grew up primarily doing woodwork but now has an expansive array of studio spaces for crafting in all kinds of mediums.
Gary Steffen presenting part of his home studio space, showing some handmade figures and toys. © 2024 Fei Chan.
“I find that what we do in class on Thursdays with Hannah [Pietra] I can bring home and make again, or apply it to the art that I do myself,” Steffen said.
Participants also enjoy that they can suggest their own ideas.
Remesz, who has been part of Arts & Minds for about six years, recalled that on a family vacation, he took a picture of his shadow in the water while standing on the beach. He took the photo back to the program and asked if there was a way to create a painting of it for a class activity–it is his favorite piece he’s created to date.
Bob Remesz’s favorite art piece he’s created on display now at the showcase. © 2024 Fei Chan.
“I hope what they take away is, looking at it they will see that ‘yeah maybe I can do this too!’ and then they either get involved with our program or some of the other art programs around here,” Remesz said.
Art plays an important role in both Steffen and Remesz’s lives, especially later in life which people tend to think of as a time when growing and learning becomes stagnant.
“Art has given me something to look forward to,” Steffen said. “It’s built up my encouragement not to give up, but to continue with what I’m doing.”
Pietra emphasized that we’ve been aging since we were born and the beauty of it is that when we adapt the mindset that new experiences come with aging, it “changes our whole perception, our whole experience as we’re getting older and how we treat older adults too.”
“Part of the showcase is to show that no matter what age you are, you have the capability to learn new skills, to develop new parts of your identity, to find ways that keep you growing and learning, and when you’re given the right tools, everyone is capable of being creative and expressing themselves,” Pietra said.