Beginning in May, Lifetime Arts began a series of engagements with 19 state arts agencies as part of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies‘ Leveraging State Investments in Creative Aging Initiative. To date, we have trained nearly 130 teaching artists, library programmers and arts agency staff in Delaware, Nebraska, New Jersey, and Tennessee.
What Artists, Programmers, and Arts Agency Staff Are Thinking Post-Training
What questions are you asking now?
“[The training] caused me to reflect on and disassemble my preconceived notions about what older adults can’t do. I’ll be pushing my student partners to the next level in skill development.”
DELAWARE TEACHING ARTIST
“How actively are we as an arts organization pursuing aging facilities for possible offerings for the arts, i.e., nursing homes and other long-term care facilities and community centers which offer programs for older population, especially during and post-Covid?”
NEBRASKA TEACHING ARTIST
“If the state has 95 counties, but only 25 teaching artists have the credentials currently … there will be challenges.”
TENNESSEE TEACHING ARTIST
What inspired you?
“I was so inspired by seeing artists make personal connections and have some ‘ah-ha’ moments for how they can provide innovative programming for older adults. I think there is opportunity for many of the teaching artists to build some cross-sector partnerships and collaborations which will be really incredible to see on the funding side.”
TENNESSEE ARTS COMMISSION STAFFER
“The knowledge (facilitation skills and art form) of the Lifetime Arts team; Lifetime Arts model for remote learning, especially modeling what a large team it takes to pull off a high-quality training like this.”
TENNESSEE TEACHING ARTIST
“The large group of working artists that are committed to this training.”
NEBRASKA TEACHING ARTIST
What Lifetime Arts is Learning
In addition to work already underway with these first four, we have also met with the next 7 state agency partners scheduled to kick off their creative aging efforts this year. We will work with an additional 8 states for 2022.
“What has been fascinating to me throughout the initial planning meetings is that each arts agency — whether with a staff of 10 or 100 — has embraced this opportunity with serious, strategic and passionate effort,” said Maura O’Malley, Lifetime Arts co-founder and CEO. “They have built internal teams, reached out across their states to identify and engage stakeholders and have committed funding, staff and resources to allow us to help them build a solid base of support to develop and institutionalize creative aging. This work takes time, collaboration and perseverance. Working with the state arts agencies as partners is worth all the effort.”
Julie Kline, our education associate, had this to say: “It’s been really fun to work across a range of states, and to get to know librarians and teaching artists from such different cultural and artistic backgrounds. I’ve been excited by the enthusiasm of those for whom the sequential model of arts learning for older adults is brand new. I’ve also been impressed by meeting folks who are well established in the field and have been pushing for quality arts programming for older adults in their communities for a long time. While we often think of creative aging as a relatively “new” field, it’s been nice to be reminded that it is already a powerful movement across the country. Our job at Lifetime Arts is just to continue to lend our support to its growth!”
Our director of education, Annie Montgomery, agreed: “They are ready to learn and eager to begin to offer creative aging programs where older adults are engaged in learning and personal growth! The momentum and eagerness that all the folks we are training have for implementing creative aging is inspiring. This excitement can be felt even through the zoom platform so I can’t wait to see how this movement will take shape across the country.”
To learn more, visit Leveraging State Investments in Creative Aging.
