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Other Resources

Consider exploring other resources to augment the Sundogs and Sunflowers: An Art for Life Program Guide for Creative Aging, Health, and Wellness Toolkit.

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  • Dance for PD offers internationally-acclaimed dance classes for people with Parkinson’s disease. Dance, music, and movement has been shown to beneficial effects for people with mobility issues. This organization provides training, instructional media, and information regarding dance and Parkinson’s disease. To learn more visit https://danceforparkinsons.org/

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  • Music & Memory is a non-profit organization that trains elder care facility staff and others to create personalized playlists using iPods and other technologies to capitalize on the emotional and physiological impact of music for people with Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and other cognitive issues. To access further information, workshops, or to become trained visit https://musicandmemory.org/

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  • Folk Art and Aging: Life-Story Objects and Their Makers – by Jon Kay, Director of Traditional Arts Indiana, Curator of Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Mathers Museum of World Cultures, Bloomington, Indiana

    “Growing old doesn’t have to be seen as an eventual failure but rather as an important developmental stage of creativity. Offering an absorbingly different perspective on aging and crafts, Jon Kay explores how elders choose to tap into their creative and personal potential through making life-story objects. Carving, painting, and rug hooking not only help them cope with the ails of aging and loneliness but also achieve greater satisfaction with their lives. Whether revived from childhood memories or inspired by their capacity to connect to others, meaningful memory projects serve as a lens for focusing on, remaking, and sharing the long-ago. As Kay observes, it can be a solitary journey for those who reconsider their past in such a markedly material way. These activities often help seniors productively fill the hours after they have raised their children, retired from their jobs, and/or lost a loved one. These individuals forge new identities for themselves that do not erase their past lives but build on them—new lives that include sharing scenes and stories from their memories.
    - Memory Art and Aging: Lessons on Successful Aging and the Arts  

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  • The MoMA Alzheimer’s Project: Making Art Accessible to People with Dementia provides online instructional videos for facilitating art discussion and art programming for people with Alzheimer’s disease.  The videos are particularly applicable to museums and art galleries. To access these resources visit https://www.moma.org/meetme/practice/index

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  • The National Center for Creative Aging (NCCA) is a leader in advocacy, capacity-building, education, and national initiatives in the field of creative aging.  They are working with state arts agencies across the country helping them to create effective arts and aging programming.  The NCCA has an extensive Online Artist Training in Arts and Aging as well as a Creative Caregiving Guide available.  Both are very insightful and valuable.  To learn more visit http://www.creativeaging.org/

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  • The Summit on Creativity and Aging in America was produced in collaboration with the 2015 White House Conference on Aging, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Center for Creative Aging.  This informative text discusses lifelong learning, community design, and the nexus between health, wellness, and the arts.  To access this text visit https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/summit-on-creative-aging-feb2016.pdf 

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  • TimeSlips is a storytelling protocol for people with memory issues or forms of dementia.  It was developed by Anne Basting, Ph.D., a Founding Director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center on Age and Community.  TimeSlips utilizes images to engage elders in storytelling that stresses imagination, rather than attempts to recall memory.  Information on workshops and online certification or training in TimeSlips can be obtained by visiting their website at http://www.timeslips.org/

    Sally Jeppson of Gackle, ND, is certified in the TimeSlips program and has conducted workshops and residencies for many of the NDCA’s Art for Life Program partners.  She states, "As the Art for Life Program coordinator for the Jamestown Arts Center, in association with North Dakota Council on the Arts, we are working to improve the lives and well-being of seniors across North Dakota by using art and arts activities. By continually innovating, and using techniques such as TimeSlips, in concert with original art, exhibits and contracted artists, we provide resources and activities to eldercare centers that help transform the lives of their residents as well as the facility's staff and culture."  If you would like to work with a certified TimeSlips trainer and someone who is very familiar with the Art for Life Program, you can contact her at polarpony@mac.com.

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  • Weaving Traditional Arts into the Fabric of Community Health is a publication produced by the Alliance for California Traditional Arts directed by Amy Kitchener.  This important work explores the association between the participation in and performance of traditional arts and health and wellness.  Community-based arts plays a key role in this association.  To learn more download the PDF of this publication at http://www.actaonline.org/sites/default/files/images/docs/briefing.pdf

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