This week we’re celebrating National Arts in Education Week. While the week has traditionally been primarily associated with arts programs in public schools, the emphasis has broadened in recent years to promote the benefits of quality arts learning activities across the aging spectrum.
According to Americans for the Arts “The arts are an essential part of a complete education, no matter if it happens in the home, school or community. Students of all ages–from kindergarten to college to creative aging programs–benefit from artistic learning, innovative thinking and creativity.”
AZ Creative Aging
At the Arizona Commission on the Arts, we have long considered lifelong learning in, through and about the arts to be a central component of our agency’s mission. Last month, Alex Nelson, the Arts Commission’s Director of Arts Learning, appeared on Arizona Horizon to announce the launch of AZ Creative Aging, a new comprehensive initiative that aims to build a creative aging infrastructure to enhance quality of life for older Arizonans. With funding from Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, AZ Creative Aging will provide training to teaching artists, support the development of high-quality arts programs for older adults and embed creative aging knowledge and best practices in the community.
We are now deep into planning this ambitious three-year initiative. In the process, we are consulting with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the field of creative aging. This week, we are honored to host Tammy Hauser of ArtSage Minnesota, a nationally recognized model of arts and aging programs.
ArtSage Minnesota
Formerly called the Minnesota Creative Arts and Aging Network, ArtSage was founded by a small group of volunteer artists and activists in the aging field. Since then, ArtSage has trained 105 teaching artists and 21 arts organizations throughout Minnesota, consulted with 21 Minnesota arts organizations, and launched a pilot project with Ecumen, one of the region’s largest providers of continuum-of-care housing services, to develop replicable, evidence-informed arts programs for older adults at all care levels that can be replicated in all their communities.
Another organization from which we are drawing a great deal of inspiration in this process is the National Center for Creative Aging (NCCA).
National Center for Creative Aging
According to their mission statement, “The National Center for Creative Aging is dedicated to fostering an understanding of the vital relationship between creative expression and healthy aging, and to developing programs that build upon this understanding.”
In 2014, the Arizona Commission on the Arts was one of 13 state arts agencies selected to participate in NCCA’s EngAge initiative, a first-of-its-kind community of practice initiative to support state arts agencies in developing infrastructure and programming in arts, health and aging in their state.
Our work with EngAge was instrumental to the development of AZ Creative Aging.
The NCCA website houses a wealth of information and resources on creative aging. We’re particularly fond of their stories page, where they have gathered first-hand accounts of arts and aging success stories from across the country, and their comprehensive directory of creative aging programs across the country.
As we develop and implement AZ Creative Aging, we’ll be reporting regularly about our progress, as well as sharing opportunities and resources related to the work. Keep an eye on the AZ Creative Aging page our our website and be sure to subscribe to our Arts Learning newsletter to stay up to date.
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