Seniors connect through art
LEAP project sees participants complete three creative pieces
Another 8-week LEAP program is in the books for the Acadian Centre in Deblois, and participants were tasked with making three creative projects including decorating the top of a fold-up table, crafting with buttons and painting.
Bluegrass music fan Lena Brown now has a special table to take with her on the bluegrass circuit.
As part of the Love to Pieces Learning Elders Art Program (LEAP) Brown created the piece and included some of her late husband’s guitar picks, medals and coins in her decorated tabletop. “My mind was on him, I guess, whenever I did it.” Her husband, Wayne, passed away eight years ago. “He always played with a heavy pick” she said in recalling his bluegrass days. The two pennies, Brown said, were kept in his wallet for luck.
The program, held at the Acadian Centre in Deblois, had each of the 25 program participants complete three art projects including decorating the top of a fold-up table.
Instructor for the eight-week program, Sara Lee Perry, was prepared to supply all the materials for the three projects, but participants were free to incorporate items from their homes.
Brown said she had done some painting before but never a decorated tabletop.
For the painting project, participants were encouraged to create a scene showing four seasons. Some went with a central landmark, depicting the four seasons around it and others depicted the same scene in each season.
Love to Pieces had participants using lots of little pieces in their projects. They decorated tabletops incorporated ceramic tiles in patterns of the artists’ choice, and some participants incorporated sea glass and pottery pieces in their creations. Participants also made button trees, gluing buttons to a canvas which had a tree trunk painted on it.
Beatrice Perry said she has been painting all of her life, but the tabletops and the button trees were new experiences for her. Through the project, she said, she learned how to blend colours.
“It gives a chance and an opportunity for the seniors, and also, for the community to be involved with our seniors, said Sylvia McIntyre Smith, director of the Deblois Acadian Centre. LEAP Projects are sponsored by the P.E.I. Senior Citizens Federation and funded by the provincial government. This is the fourth time the centre has received LEAP funding. McIntyre Smith said the projects have helped bring more members to the centre. She’s also encouraged about the sense of community the project creates “Some people are stronger in painting than doing another craft, but they all intertwine; they all help each other. It’s pretty cool.”
Participants enjoy the social part of the program, too, she noted.
“I really enjoyed it,” said Brown. “It’s nice meeting all the people and seeing the kids while at the school.” Community members and students from the attached Ecole Pierre-Chiasson attended an art show as part of the program’s closing celebration.