National Guild 2019 Benchmarking Data Report: Creative Aging

“I just look out the window and see what's visible but not yet seen.” -- Peter Drucker

The National Guild for Community Arts Education (Guild) is dedicated to ensuring all people have opportunities to maximize their creative potential. But when we examined the student population of Guild member organizations in 2017, it was clear that adults 55+ were being left out. Only 8% of students were 65+ and less than 30% reported having any engagement with older adults. And virtually none of that programming was in alignment with Creative Aging’s framework of intentional integration of skills-based arts learning and social engagement. By 2030 there will be more Americans over 65 than under 18 years old: it’s not just bad business to ignore this important audience, it’s inequitable and harmful to everyone.

In response, Aroha Philanthropies and the Guild announced Catalyzing Creative Aging, a large-scale, multi-year, cross-sector partnership to build the capacity of community arts education organizations across the country to launch new Creative Aging programs. Building on previous efforts, the Guild, Aroha and program partner Lifetime Arts developed a multi-pronged approach centered on creating new programs, expanding the knowledge base, and advocating for Creative Aging in the community arts education field and beyond. For many in the community arts education field, eyes have been opened to what was there all along: the profound need for—and community benefits of—arts education and engagement for adults 55 and better. In addition, is becoming clear that building a Creative Aging movement demands ageism that is knowingly and unknowingly perpetuated by individuals, organizations, and communities.

As part of the Guild’s transformational journey to confront ageism and promote inclusion for community arts education students of all ages, we needed to dig deeper into the practice of our members. With Aroha Philanthropies’ support, the latest version of our biannual Benchmarking Data Report featured a new section dedicated to Creative Aging practice of Guild members. Key findings from responses show that Creative Aging is a growing program area for Guild members:

● 41% of members report they offer a Creative Aging program (a 37% increase from 2017!)
● 11% have offered their Creative Aging programming for less than one year
● 26% reported their program has been offered for one to three years
● Among those who do not currently offer creative aging, 23% plan to launch programming within the next 12 months.

We are delighted to see the growth of implementation of (and plans to launch) intentional skills-based arts programming for adults 55+! The twist? This report—with data collected in Winter 2020—is a snapshot of the community arts education field just before COVID-19’s arrival.

So, what does this mean for our new pandemic reality?

To find out, the Guild’s Creative Aging Member Network Steering Committee developed and launched a specific Creative Aging field survey to inform community arts educators. 116 administrators and teaching artists completed the survey in October 2020, which included questions on how Creative Aging programs have adapted since the pandemic, what challenges and successes they are experiencing, and how they are addressing racial equity and/or serving vulnerable adults 55+. Not surprisingly, a key takeaway is the tremendous need for Creative Aging programs to combat social isolation in the face of formidable challenges to engaging participants, partners, and funders. It has also opened our eyes to the possibility of integrating remote learning into the time-tested Creative Aging program model. As always, we find inspiration in the expertise and passion of our peers, as evidenced by one respondent, “Moving to a virtual environment has shown us new ways to interact with individuals in our community, as well as allowed us to move outside of our community to work with new folks. We have found that people are much more flexible with learning new technologies and new ways of interacting as learners/teachers than originally imagined. We know that some of these new methods of working together will continue beyond this pandemic.”

Ironically, our current best efforts to protect ourselves from COVID-19—self-isolation—has been identified by WHO as a “serious public health concern” for adults 55+ because of the heightened risk of cardiovascular, autoimmune, neurocognitive, and mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. However, at this stage, we are all coping to some degree with physical and social isolation. COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on adults 55+ has served to underscore the value of Creative Aging for those who might have not been mindful of it before March 2020. The health crisis has presented a new opportunity to advocate with funders and cross-sector partners about the impact of Creative Aging on social isolation.

More than ever, it’s clear that ensuring access to creative expression and engagement for adults 55 and better is not just a program, it’s a matter of public health and social justice. The Guild and the broader community arts field is building a coalition to sustain and expand the Creative Aging movement with a depth and breadth of thoughtful, relevant, and innovative responses to rapidly changing conditions. Together, we will forge pathways beyond the pandemic that increase accessibility to programming while delivering the positive physical and mental health outcomes associated with Creative Aging. And we are more hopeful than ever that we will emerge stronger and more resilient on the other side of this crisis.

--This post was written by Kate Riley, Development Manager at the Guild.

by S Drebelbis

Seeding Vitality Arts Evaluation Results

Aroha’s Seeding Vitality Arts (SVA) grantees gathered data on participant outcomes pursuant to an evaluation process designed by Touchstone Center for Collaborative Inquiry. High-impact outcomes were reported in post-program surveys of 2,187 participants in the SVA U.S. and SVA MN programs between 2017 and 2019. Read the full report here.

by S Drebelbis

Create+Collaborate: Quarantine Edition

What do you do when one of your program goals is to help diminish social isolation through creativity and collaboration and then your city declares a social lockdown?

At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), we were three visits into Create+Collaborate, a 10-session printmaking class for older adults, when we got the call that all art programs were suspended and the museum was closing temporarily to protect our communities from COVID-19. At first we wallowed in the irony, waited for curves to flatten and art classes to start up again. And then we called all our students, the most vulnerable to the virus. “How are you doing?” “Do you have access to the internet?” “Oh! On what device...?”

Nine of the fifteen original students were game to take the challenge and try printmaking from their kitchen tables via videoconferencing. We sent them detailed instructions on how to join Zoom from their smartphones, tablets, and laptops. They called their adult children to borrow computers. There were students who got bullied by log-ins and meeting ID’s but Pattie Esquivel, the senior program coordinator, always found a secret backdoor. Everyone proved their perseverance and ability to learn new technologies.

Teaching artist Marianne Sadowski started each class with a warm welcome and a round-robin check-in. Participants shared anger with our rudderless president. They shared the loss of loved ones and fear of getting sick themselves. They shared sadness that birthdays with grandchildren were socially distant and without hugs. But they also listened deeply to one another, rallied around each other, and gave tips for better Zoom angles and lighting. Everyone proved their empathy and ability to make new connections, even online.

Art stores weren’t considered essential businesses at the beginning of the pandemic. So printmaking kits were ordered from Blick, which sadly sat in transit purgatory for weeks! Marianne adapted her lesson plans to accommodate a printmaking class void of brayers and inks and linoleum blocks. Students looked around their houses to find unexpected art materials. One woman experimented with items from her kitchen—rolling blackberries dipped in food coloring across her pages. We begged our boss to let us on the locked-down museum campus to raid our art studio! Marianne and Pattie, masked and well supplied with Purell and Google maps, drove all over Los Angeles delivering paper, cutters, inks, and soft cut linoleum blocks! Everyone proved their resourcefulness and ability to innovate in the face of challenges.

Carolyn shares her fruit prints. Photo Credit: Karen Satzman

What do you do when another program goal is to collaborate and your co-creatives are on social lockdown? You make a pandemic-themed book! The students’ prints, writings, and experimentations were accumulated and bound (bookbinding, another new skill they learned) to reveal their collective creativity. Twelve brilliant, beautiful, and heartfelt books titled The Utility of What is Not - Reflections from Quarantine are to show for it. No surprise, but everyone proved their generosity and ability to collaborate—together yet apart.

Students created the collaborative book The Utility of What is Not - Reflections from Quarantine. Photo Credit: Karen Satzman

Create+Collaborate was launched in 2017 and every single class demonstrated that older adults have the ability to learn new skills, experiment and take risks, learn from and help others, and discover the ways in which creativity can uplift your spirit. There was a uniqueness, however, to this class that we didn’t see when we were together in the studio. Outside of class time students emailed each other encouraging words, recommended books and artists, shared their vulnerabilities, and cared for each other. As Marianne stated in the book’s dedication, “Moving quickly to an online world, we found a different way to connect, some ways deeper and more open. Together we moved to explore how the pandemic’s dark reality also carried bright hope.” And, as one student commented in the post-class survey, “The regular class has many benefits, but during the pandemic, the online class was a lifesaver.”

Written by Karen Satzman, Director, Youth & Family Programs, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

by S Drebelbis

The High Cost of Ageism

The High Cost of Ageism

Did you know that people who are ageist may live shorter lives? Becca Levy of the Yale School of Public Health has studied the effects of ageism for more than 20 years. She reports that those who held more positive self-perceptions of aging lived 7.5 years longer than those with negative self-perceptions. (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 83, No. 2.)

Can Ageism Make Me Ill?

According to Levy, the negative effects of age stereotypes on health outcomes, including stress, depression and a higher risk of heart disease, are well documented.

These beliefs also may be linked to brain changes related to Alzheimer’s disease. A major 2017 study studied age stereotypes of participants who had been measured decades before, when they were dementia-free. They found more instances of two physical conditions associated with Alzheimer’s in those who had negative age stereotypes earlier in life.

According to Levy, people take in a lifetime of ageist stereotypes, unconsciously direct them inward toward themselves and then act accordingly. Their behavior then reinforces these stereotypes, both in their own minds and those of people around them. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Medical research has often enforced these prejudices. British writer Anne Karpf notes that until recently, much of the research on aging has been conducted in nursing homes, despite the fact that the vast majority of older people don’t live in these less-than-stimulating environments. Research subjects simply haven’t adequately represented older people.

But are the Negative Stereotypes True?

No. A June 2018 report from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission states:

Decades of social science research document that age does not predict one's ability, performance, or interest… Many older people out-perform or perform as well as young people, and intellectual functions can actually improve with age. While speedy thinking may decline over time, middle-aged brains adapt to reach solutions faster, make sounder judgments, and better navigate the complex world of today. Innovation and creativity span the age spectrum as well.

Positive Attitudes about Age Improve Health

Here’s the good news: people's positive beliefs about older people appear to boost their mental health. Levy found that older adults exposed to positive stereotypes have significantly better memory and balance, whereas negative self-perceptions contributed to worse memory and feelings of worthlessness. In fact, the positive-age-stereotype intervention even yielded greater physical improvements than a six-month exercise regimen. (McAuley et al., 2013)

Changing the Narrative

So why does all this ageist behavior continue? Cultural norms are slow to change. It’s hard to shed long-held beliefs, even when the facts show they’re false. But there’s hope. The World Health Organization has called for a global campaign to fight ageism, saying, “Combatting ageism presents a major opportunity for achieving healthy aging ... Experience with sexism and racism has shown that changing social norms is possible and can result in more prosperous, equitable and healthier societies.”

Are you lucky enough to already be an older adult? If so, you can help demonstrate the absurdity of ageism. Immerse yourself in positive images of aging and push conventional wisdom out the door. Learn something brand new. Ignite the creativity you didn’t know you had. Take improv or dance classes. Join a choir or a band. Join us in pushing back against ageism.

by T Bonner

Supporting Teaching Artists with Creative Aging Trainings

by S Drebelbis