JAMESVILLE — On the walls and back table of its community room, The Nottingham in Jamesville is showcasing a traveling art show through this Thursday, Jan. 30 featuring outside works created by older adults from the surrounding community.
Called “Arts & Minds: A Showcase for Creative Aging,” the mobile exhibit was curated by Syracuse Jewish Family Service (SJFS), and it was put up at The Nottingham around the turn of the new year.
The show contains 25 pieces in all spanning a variety of mediums and styles—from abstracts, yarn on cardboard loom, mixed-media collages, and watercolor paintings on woven paper to acrylic pieces made with foil, stained glass creations, and even some poetry—with certain individuals represented by multiple works.
The works of art were created in recent years by artists mostly ages 55 and up who have been engaged in SJFS’ Arts & Minds Initiative, which includes the intergenerational art-making program for people with dementia Opening Minds Through Art (OMA) as well as the Thursday Arts & Minds section of M-Power U: A Learning Community for Early Memory Loss (MPU).
In each structured OMA session with residents at Menorah Park’s Jewish Home, an elder with dementia is partnered one on one with a trained younger intern or volunteer as their supportive guide through the creative process and also just as company to have, thus bridging whatever the age gap is that exists.
MPU’s Arts & Minds section is a weekly four-hour social and learning group that provides mind-stimulating and creative activities to promote well-being and a sense of greater independence for people showing comparatively mild memory loss or experiencing less advanced cognitive impairment.
There were also community-welcoming, one-day “OMA-thon” events at Menorah Park in 2023 and this past fall that produced several pieces.
Hannah Pietra, who serves as the Arts & Minds coordinator for SJFS, said everyone in the MPU program comes from outside Menorah Park, many of them still living at home, while everyone participating in the OMA program has some form of residency at the East Genesee Street Menorah Park campus along its continuum of care for the aging.
The artists in SJFS’ traveling Arts & Minds show come from all over Central New York, and even though the social services agency was originally founded on Jewish values and principles as its name suggests, the people participating in its programs can be of any faith.
Pietra, a clinician with a background in music and creative arts therapy, said the artists involved like to bounce ideas off facilitators like herself and the volunteers trained to learn the specificities of the programs.
She said the Arts & Minds initiative not only celebrates the artwork created by presenting it in public, but the act of making the pieces itself promotes healthy aging, joy, and the ability to freely, meaningfully express oneself later in life, including for those without much previous experience in the arts.
Pietra also said that the impressive pieces combat internalized and society-wide fears about aging and stigmas and misconceptions related to the capabilities of elder folks.
“There’s a lot of research telling us creative arts can support the aging process, not necessarily taking away a diagnosis, but helping the coping process and helping someone realize what they have left to offer even if their health is declining,” Pietra said. “As you’re aging, there are still skills to gain or tap into.”
At The Nottingham, which is an independent living community of Loretto, not just residents and staff but also visiting family members and friends have been able to see the artwork put up in the community room.
Shannon Loughlin, the director of life enrichment and recreation at The Nottingham, said plenty of people have commented positively about the pieces.
“It’s all very neat and eye-catching,” Loughlin said. “I think it’s appreciated that they’re older folks of all abilities and cognition making these pieces. The people who walk in here appreciate the art they see in general but also the creative piece pertaining to the aging process.”
Loughlin said she also likes how the artwork enhances the atmosphere of her Jamesville facility’s community room and that a partnership has been forged with Syracuse Jewish Family Service at Menorah Park as a result.
The showcase was first launched in April 2024 as part of SJFS’ Arts & Minds initiative, and it’s traveling to different places throughout Central New York for at least the next year.
Other host spaces for the traveling showcase include libraries, churches, community centers, Art in the Atrium downtown, and Syracuse Hancock International Airport, and SJFS is always on the lookout for more venues willing to exhibit the place-to-place showcase, which comes with its own portable display if a facility doesn’t have the right wall space to accommodate it.
The Arts & Minds artwork is not currently for sale, but SJFS is looking to start an auction in the near future for works the artists responsible have given permission to sell.
The exhibit was made possible through the CNY Arts Grants for Regional Arts and Cultural Engagement regrant program and administered by the New York State Council on the Arts, as well as the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, the Leonard and Irwin Kamp Family Foundation, and additional individual donors and corporate sponsors.