Arts in Healthcare
Centra Health Foundation Funds AGAR’S Painting Classes For Seniors
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AGAR has instituted with partial funding from CENTRA Health Foundation a series of Acrylic Painting classes for frail seniors to be taught free of charge to participants by Amherst painting teacher and painter Charlene Ryan assisted by her husband Dennis Cooke. classes will take place ay seven Nutrition Centers in Greater Lynchburg run by Central Virginia Alliance for Community Living and at Amherst’s CENTRA/Fairmont Crossing. CENTRA Health Foundation will cover costs of art supplies and a modest art teacher’s fee.
Charlene Ryan is conducting a series of four sessions of acrylic painting classes at each of seven CVACL nutrition sites, serving individuals from Altavista, Amherst, Lynchburg (12th St. & Madison site), Appomattox, Campbell Café, Moneta, and Montvale. Ms. Ryan will conduct an additional six sessions at CENTRA Fairmont Crossing in Amherst, VA. Jerri Bishop from CVACL will coordinate the program at CVACL nutrition sites, and Rita Napper, activities director, will be coordinator for Fairmont Crossing. Painting Teacher Charlene Ryan belongs to the Amherst County Art Society and has been teaching acrylic painting for the Amherst County Parks and Recreation Department for seven years. She moved to Amherst, and joined the Amherst Art Society in 2005, serving as its President for four years, and heading up the Society’s annual arts show for five years. Her own painting work has been exhibited at sites including Nelson County Library, Nelson County Courthouse, Amherst County Offices. Madison Heights and Amherst Branches of the |
Senior painters at the CVACL Amherst-Lynchburg nutrition site in Lynchburg hard at work during the first day of classes with AGAR acrylics painting teacher Charlene Ryan. The gentleman pictured at right said to Jerri Bishop that he had always wanted to learn to paint, and this was his first opportunity. Amherst County Public Library. In summer 2019 her work is on view in a group show at Sweet Briar College’s Benedict Hall Gallery. AGAR will also continue its arts and health programs through performances at Fairmont Crossing and for CVACL special events and delivery of poems to meals on wheel clients of Fairmont Crossing, CVACL and Amherst Blue Ledge Meals on Wheels. |
AGAR AT MENTAL HEALTH CONFERENCE
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Lynn Kable and Naj Wikoff Represent National Organization for Arts and Health at “Stomp Out Stigma”
AGAR'S Lynn Kable joined NOAH Board member Naj Wikoff at a mental health and addiction conference "STOMP OUT STIGMA" at the Nelson Center in Lovingston, April 12, 2018, speaking about arts and health. National Organization for Arts and Health (theNOAH.com) is an organization that serves community healthcare organizations, hospitals, artists, arts therapists, arts councils, architects and designers working in the general field of Arts and Health. Mr. Wikoff was a keynote speaker who spoke about his work with arts and wounded warriors, first responders and veterans. Lynn Kable spoke about two projects AGAR had done with elders living with dementia at Fairmont Crossing Rehabilitation Center. The first provided concerts after dinner and before bedtime; evaluation showed residents had fewer behavioral incidents and "rang bells" for attention less often on concert nights. The second provided a quilting activity aimed at bringing residents together in an art activity with caregiving relatives, staff and volunteers. Mrs. Kable also spoke about two projects she had worked with in New York. One was a Hospital Audiences, Inc. |
health education project in which a psychiatrist conducted needs assessments and then wrote scenarios relating to unhealthy and healthy behaviors. Facilitators gave a short lecture with healthy behavior information. Trained actors used the scenarios to interact with students in schools, residents of shelters, and patients in mental health programs. The people attending the program were asked to give healthy advice to the actor. The actors were introduced as actors playing a role, and their bad habits were described. The audience volunteers played friends, mothers, spouses of the character.
Finally, Mrs. Kable showed excerpts from Demeter's Daughter, directed by Tamar Rogoff, in which the story of the Greek Goddess of growing plants and crops, Demeter, her daughter Persephone, and the ruler of the underworld, Hades was re-told in community gardens, store rooftops, abandoned schoolyards and community center steps on 9th Street and Avenue C. Dancers, musicians, and actors in the program ranged from well-known professionals, to performing arts majors at New York University, storytelling elders, teens from a dropout-prevention program and children from a headstart pre-school group. Also on the "Stomp Out Stigma" program speaking about community arts were representatives of Academy Center for the Arts Community Arts Program. |
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