On Thursday, December 5, the final culminating event, a showcase spotlighting jewelry made by workshop participants at the Mattapan branch of the Boston Public Library, featured tables brimming with work created using three different techniques: beading, woven fibers, and multimedia collage.
The goal of the workshop was to introduce and master professional jewelry-making techniques, to learn the tools and materials of the craft, and to develop a body of work that exhibited a cumulative set of art-making skills.
Marjorie Saintil-Belizaire, a City of Boston artist-in-residence, led the workshop and organized the culminating event along with the team from Age Strong, Boston’s commission for older adult affairs, and BPL librarian, Maurice Gordon.
Marjorie ensured that the group of participants, many of whom did not know each other beforehand, and who hailed from several Boston neighborhoods, enjoyed a supportive social environment as they learned together. In fact, she exclaimed that they all bonded so tightly, that they knew everything about each other’s lives and that she felt that she had acquired several new “sisters and aunties” in the process.
Several participants explained to Lifetime Arts that they had family members who are visual and performing artists, and that before this class, they didn’t think that they themselves had the capacity to create art. They, as many first-time Creative Aging workshop participants have done, realized that this is an incorrect assumption!
Photo credit: Shannon McDonough for Lifetime Arts