Cambridge program for seniors gets boost

CAMBRIDGE — Blue sky. Fluffy clouds. A flowing river.

Lois Thompson, 76, admired the serene scene she painted in watercolours with a group of other seniors at Cambridge’s Idea Exchange on Friday morning.

This Arts & Soul Seniors brush session, held while the province announced $7,704 for the new program run by the city’s library and galleries at Queen’s Square, suited her.

There was no racket or commotion in this art project.

Thompson, who helped raise 250 foster kids with her late husband Russell on a Haysville farm along the Nith River, liked that lack of noise.

“After all those kids, you look forward to quiet,” Thompson said.

So a few weeks ago, a Djembe drum session with a bunch of seniors at the Stirling Heights long-term care facility in Cambridge wasn’t Thompson’s favourite activity.

“Too noisy,” said Thompson, who also adopted three kids.

Still, she banged on one of those rope-tuned, skin-coloured goblet drums with a percussion mallet. The music they made seemed to sweep the seniors away.

In another session, Thompson painted a silk scarf bright shades of pink, purple and yellow. She used coarse salt to make the splotchy pattern.

She was happy to get that scarf, finished and packaged in plastic, on Friday.

But while Dipika Damerla, Ontario’s minister for senior affairs, took part in a media conference upstairs, Thompson sat in her wheelchair and painted quietly with other seniors in a mainfloor side room.

Keeping seniors connected. Removing any isolation they might feel.

Those are the goals of the program, which will offer sessions at Chartwell Queen’s Square Retirement Residence. Multimedia art and sculpture sessions are planned.

“Working with their hands is really great for their dexterity,” said Aidan Ware, gallery director for Idea Exchange.

Thompson, who shared the Ontario foster parent of the year award with her husband in 2000, rebounded from health woes the past two summers. She’s from a sturdy clan. Her mom, Evelyn, was 100 when she died in March. Her mom’s mom died a month shy of 100.

Thompson still likes to knit and do ceramics. She follows all her foster kids on Facebook.

She was pleased with the peacefulness of her watercolour art on Friday. But she wasn’t ready to show it off in all its silent glory. “When I put it in the dresser drawer upside-down, it’ll be quieter.”