2025 Creative Aging Convening in Tucson

The 2025 Creative Aging Convening will showcase the innovative work taking place across Southern Arizona’s creative aging sector by local practitioners. The goal of this convening is to provide professional development in creative aging focused on trends and topics relevant to the communities throughout Southern Arizona. Designed to bring together Arizona’s vast creative aging sector including teaching artists, arts organizations, and the health and aging field, this professional development will focus on sharing tools and resources to equip attendees with the inspiration and information they need to provide meaningful creative aging programing.

Monday, May 12, 2025
9:30am – 3:30pm

CATALYST Creative Collective by SAACA at the Tucson Mall
4500 N Oracle Rd Suite 110
Tucson, AZ 85705

Registration for this event is now closed.

Topic Time Presenter 
Doors Open – coffee 9:00 – 9:30
Welcome 9:30 – 9:45 ACA
Artful Connection: Intergenerational Co-Creation for Health Equity and Belonging 9:45 – 10:45 Adriane Ackerman & Sadie Shaw
Creative Aging in the LGBTQ+ Community 11:00 – 12:00 Harrison Orr
Lunch 12:00 — 12:30 All
The Long Gift 12:30 – 2:00 Kimi Eisele & Ames Meeks
S. AZ Creative Aging Cohort Panel 2:15 – 3:15 Southern Arizona Creative Aging Cohort
Closure 3:15 – 3:30

Artful Connection: Intergenerational Co-Creation for Health Equity and Belonging

Presenters: Adriane Ackerman & Sadie Shaw
Organizations: Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona, Agile Accomplice LLC, Pima County Health Department

What if we treated aging not as a siloed experience, but as a shared, intergenerational journey? What might become possible if we created programs that honored aging as a collective process, and trusted people of all ages to lead and co-create together? In this session, presenters Adriane Ackerman and Sadie Shaw will share insights from SaludArte, a collaborative public art and health initiative that brought together community members of all ages to reflect on resilience, healing, and health equity. Though the project was not designed specifically for older adults, many elders participated, and helped shape the experience in powerful ways.
This session will offer grounded reflections on how to create welcoming, accessible, and relationship-based spaces for older adults within broader community initiatives. Presenters will explore the intentional choices that made it easier for elders to participate, the role of trust-building over time, and the importance of seeing aging as a collective, creative process—not something that happens in isolation.
Rather than focusing on aging solely as an experience reserved for later in life, this conversation will frame aging and elder inclusion within a broader call for intergenerational co-creation as a strategy for community health. Participants will come away with adaptable principles for inclusive engagement, as well as inspiration to design efforts that honor people’s experiences across the lifespan.

Creative Aging in the LGBTQ+ Community

Presenter: Harrison Orr
Organization: Southern Arizona Senior Pride

This session will explore the unique value of creative aging programs within the LGBTQ+ community, the benefits of intergenerational learning, and the possibility for community-building. Learn about the unique challenges facing LGBTQ+ older adults and get inspired to be an agent of change in your community!

The Long Gift

Presenters: Kimi Eisele & Ames Meeks

What does it mean to inherit? What does it mean to pass something on? How are our lives enriched by thinking about what we want to leave after we’re gone? This workshop explores and interrogates the idea of legacy, which can sometimes weigh heavily in the lives of aging adults. Understanding how legacy connects to personal values helps us meet those we serve where they are so we can better guide them in creative practices addressing what and how to “gift.” Join Ames Meeks, artist and death doula, and Kimi Eisele, artist and folklorist, for a hands-on exploration of “legacy.”

Southern AZ Creative Aging Cohort Panel

Moderator: Melissa Brown-Dominguez
Panelists: Adriana Carlson (Douglas), Desiree Guerrero Yuma), Melo Dominguez (South Tucson), Lisa Swanson (Casa Grande), Sam Mulder (Tucson)

The Southern Arizona Creative Aging Cohort focuses on building regional sustainable ecosystems for creative aging in different communities in Southern Arizona. The yearlong engagement focuses on a partnership model that identifies three organizations within a geographic region such as a local arts agency or arts organization, teaching artist, and an aging service organization such as a local senior center or residential facility. Representatives from the five teams participating in our Southern AZ Creative Aging Cohort will reflect on the program and report on the work they’re doing in their communities.

The Southern Arizona Creative Aging Cohort has been funded by a grant made to the Arizona Commission on the Arts by the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies in partnership with E.A. Michelson Philanthropy. (edited)

Adrian Ackerman

Adriane Ackerman (she/her/ella) is a strategist, facilitator, and founder of Agile Accomplice LLC—a consultancy that helps bureaucracy bend towards equity. With over 20 years of experience building partnerships across public health, government, and grassroots movements, Adriane specializes in turning big systems into responsive, community-powered engines of change. She’s worked with the Houston Endowment, Dalberg Design, the Arizona Department of Health Services, and more. Previously, she served as Program Director for Pima County’s health literacy initiative and co-created SaludArte—a groundbreaking cultural health project that bridges public art and public health—and the nation’s first Office of Policy, Resilience, and Equity. Whether she’s convening coalitions, designing participatory processes, or dreaming up new ways to move from consultation to co-creation, Adriane is always asking: How can we make participation accessible, sustainable, and irresistible? Her work uplifts the leadership, knowledge, and joy of communities that institutions too often leave behind.

Kimi Eisele

Kimi Eisele (she, her) is a writer, multidisciplinary artist, and folklorist. Her writing and arts-based work aims to illuminate kinship between people, cultures, plants, animals, and places. She is the author of The Lightest Object in the Universe (Algonquin Books, 2019), a novel about love, loss, and adaptation in a post-collapse America; and her essays have appeared in Guernica, Longreads, Literary Hub, Orion, Terrain.org, and elsewhere. She works in Tucson at the Southwest Folklife Alliance, where she edits BorderLore, an online journal of culture and heritage in the borderlands and has curated public spaces for grief and cultural practices at end-of-life.

Harrison Orr

Harrison is an artist and educator based in Tucson. He is an adjunct instructor in Arts Administration at the University of Arizona, as well as the Communications Coordinator at Southern Arizona Senior Pride. He previously served as the education manager at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson. Harrison has been developing and facilitating creative aging programs for Tucson’s LGBTQI+ community for 6 years. He earned an MA in Art & Visual Culture Education and a BFA in Media Arts at the University of Arizona.

Ames Meeks

Ames Meeks (they/she) is a teaching librarian, interdisciplinary artist, and death doula with a passion for creative community building and care in the classroom and beyond. They have over a decade of experience in higher education, libraries, and nonprofit organizations. Their creative practice includes creating zines and book art about love/grief, life/death, and feminist care. Ames engages their local Tucson, AZ community around DIY publishing through their zine bike, known as Outspokin’ & Bookish, and zine workshops. Ames currently works towards empowering individuals and organizations to preserve and share their stories through their role as the Community and Partnerships Manager for the Permanent Legacy Foundation.

Sadie Shaw

Sadie Shaw is an artist, arts administrator, neighborhood organizer, and oral historian. A graduate of the University of Arizona, she holds a BFA in Art & Visual Culture Education with a focus on working in community settings. She is the Public Art and Community Design Administrator at the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona where she manages the SaludArte program, a collaboration between the Arts Foundation and the Pima County Health Department to bridge the gap between the arts and healthcare.
Reelected to the Tucson Unified School District Governing Board in 2024, Sadie champions arts education, student success, and transparent governance. As Vice President of the Sugar Hill Neighborhood Association, Sadie advances community empowerment and historic preservation. She founded the Sugar Hill Community Land Trust to combat gentrification and support arts and culture. Through her art, activism, and leadership, Sadie is committed to building a more just and vibrant Tucson.

Adriana “Bibi” Carson
Team Douglas

Teacher, choreographer, director, teaching artist, and binational artist. At just 19 years old, she started her own dance school, Bbdanceur Performing Academy, in Douglas, Arizona. Her love for art, her students, and her community keeps her always innovating and motivating the youth of Douglas and Agua Prieta. In 2017, Adriana became a performing artist, collaborating with several foreign artists such as Ana Maria Alvarez, Violeta Luna, Paula Acevedo, among others, and in several binational events such as “sharing spaces,” “women migrations,” and “Dance in the desert.” In 2019, she completed the Teaching Artist program at ASU in Arizona, becoming the first teacher to complete this program in Douglas and the surrounding area. He currently resides in Douglas, AZ, where he participates in numerous artistic and cultural events.

Melissa Brown-Dominguez
Team South Tucson

Moderator

Melissa Brown-Dominguez is the co-founder and arts administrator of Galeria Mitotera, a Latinx/queer-owned gallery created to serve as a space to celebrate culture and uplift artists of color in the community.

Mel “Melo” Dominguez
Team South Tucson

Mel “Melo” Dominguez is an artist, muralist from Los Angeles who has lived in Tucson since 2007. Mel’s community outreach began as a Getty intern at Self Help Graphics & Art in East Los Angeles. Mel’s artwork is a direct expression of their Chicanx culture, political issues, social issues and environmental issues. Mel enjoys using creativity and activism to create a difference throughout the Tucson community.

Sam Mulder
Team Tucson

I’m the Creative Aging Specialist at The Hacienda at the Canyon, a retirement community in the Catalina Foothills. Serving our independent living, assisted living and memory care neighborhoods, I’m responsible for keeping arts at the forefront of our programming through visual arts programs, resident art gallery exhibits, and collaborating with local teaching artists to bring workshops and performances to our members.

Desiree Guerrero
Team Yuma

Desiree is a visionary multidisciplinary artist who weaves visual arts, meditation, music, dance, and theater into transformative experiences that awaken consciousness. Her journey began at age five with a bold declaration to her parents: “I’m going to be an artist!” Desiree’s work invites deep self-reflection and healing through multimedia installations, like her latest project Merkabah Lux• Mente • Espíritus: 7 Pecados en Espejos. Her unique voice embodies the belief that “El Amor lo Sana Todo”—Love heals all. Through art, Desiree reminds us of our shared humanity and infinite potential.

Lisa Swanson
Team Casa Grande

Lisa Swanson is a ceramic sculptor and teaching artist living in Casa Grande, AZ. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art and a Master’s Degree in Arts in Medicine from the University of Florida. In 2019 she became the owner, administrator and director of ArtMobile-AZ, Inc a non-Profit Arts Organization. ArtMobile-AZ provides community-based multi-generational arts, culture and creative aging programming throughout Casa Grande and Pinal County Arizona. Lisa is committed to the role of creative aging programming, as an intervention for promoting personal creative expression, social inclusion and improved quality of life for older adults.