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UP Home holds reception, celebrates artistic residents
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
WASHINGTON — The United Presbyterian Home held its annual art reception Aug. 6, showcasing a variety of pieces made by residents in the retirement community’s painting workshop.
Nancy Albert, a resident who coordinates the art classes several times a week, said the annual event was a welcome chance for participants to show their work off. The collection of works will remain on display for at least the rest of this month.
“People are seeing your stuff and they’re complimenting you, and you should see how they react,” Albert said. “They feel good, and the more you feel good, the better you’re going to do, and the more you’ll explore.”
Albert said the routine classes — held in a basement studio of the retirement community’s main campus — offered a vital service to the seniors involved: a chance to try something new.
That’s not always easy. Albert’s loosely structured sessions put first-time painters in front of a canvas with few limitations, a setup they sometimes struggle with, at first.
“It is very hard for an older person … to do something that never would have occurred to you before,” she said. “You have an opportunity to go back and try something. And yeah, it is like pulling teeth, sometimes, to get people out of that box … you’ve got certain thoughts in your head that are hardwired, you may not even realize it, and it gets worse as we get older. We think one way, and there is no one way.”
Albert, a New Jersey native, said it could be especially challenging to get new artists out of their shell in the Midwest, where their candor is muffled by a veil of Iowa-nice politeness.
In her effort to encourage creativity, she urges artists to open up about their own feelings. She’ll nudge newcomers with questions about their reference material, their color palettes, their careers before retirement, in a quest to get them thinking about what they like.
That introspection, she said, could eventually unlock a sense of artistic vision, a level of awareness that lets novice painters figure out what they’re trying to express in acrylics and watercolors.
Most artists in this year’s reception have been practicing for four to five years, according to Albert. Exact numbers vary from one person to the next.
“It’s amazing what you can do when you give yourself a little permission,” the painting instructor said. “You don’t know what you can do until you try. If you have the slightest interest in art, of any kind, that means there’s something there. Give it a shot.”
More rewarding than the work product, however, is the new mindset that comes with their experience.
Albert said the no-rules artistic method was liberating for participants, offering a new lens through which to view the world.
“All around us, we’re told, ‘This is the right way, this is the wrong way,’” she said. “And that’s not art. Art is not science. It’s, ‘Sit down, take anything, and go nuts with it.’ It means tapping into something that you didn’t even know you had.
“People think, if they find the right brush, and the right paint in the right color, on the right canvas, they’ll make a masterpiece, and that’s not it. Art is different every time, there is no right, there is no wrong, there’s just, ‘Do it.’”
Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com
