10/05/2015 Session 4 Notes

Faculty present: Joan Jeffri, Pat Miller

• Opened up with student comments:
o Loved the artist presentations
o Appreciate the student pairings and student/artist pairings, thoughtfully done

• Human Development is NOT Just for Kids: Life after 60, 70, 80+
• Presentation by Pat Miller
• Developed for Women’s Transition Network, but since presented elsewhere – Washington Heights Community Center, Fort Washington Senior Center
o Objectives
1. Recognize societal forces
2. Stages of adult development
 Erikson, Peck, Cumming & Henry, Cohen, Havighurst
3. Recognize tasks related to stages
4. Describe strategies for moving to position of stages
5. Consider ways to age successfully
o Societal forces
• Robert Burke
o Disengagement Theory
• Societal
 Retire to make way for new generation
 Life experience
 Mandatory retirement
 Remaining cultural differences
• Ageism
 Youth-oriented society
• Individual
 Now it’s my time to do what I want
o Ex.: snowbirds
• Personal Ageism
 Gives up prematurely
 Can’t adjust to limitations
o Activity Theory
• Popular in the 1960’s
• 2nd & 3rd careers more common
• Increased health & longevity
• Continuing to be active
• Changes in mandatory retirement
• Necessary to keep working for financial reasons
• More activity = greater health
• Increased volunteerism after retirement
o Erikson
Stage Age Crisis Psychosocial Virtues
1 Birth – 18m Trust vs. mistrust Hope
2 18m – 3y Autonomy vs. shame Will
3 3y – 5y Initiative vs. guilt Purpose
4 5y – 12y Industry vs. inferiority Competency
5 12y – 18y Ego identity vs. role confusion Fidelity
6 18y – 20’s Intimacy vs. isolation Love
7 20’s-50’s Generativity vs stagnation Care
8 60’s onward Integrity vs. despair Wisdom

• Last two stages have huge age ranges compared to previous stages
o How do we achieve wisdom? (Gene Cohen, 2000)
• Comes to older adults as a developmental product of age, smarts, and emotion, and practical life experience
o The Virtue of Wisdom (Baltes, 1990)
• Knowledge to respond appropriately to situations
• Strategies to make decisions and give advice
• Recognize tensions and priorities of different life stages
• Ability to separate one’s views/beliefs from those of others
• Accepting of uncertainty
 Being comfortable with grey area (student)
• Realizing that no perfect solution exists
• Accepting death as a part of life (Jenks film)
o Robert Peck’s Late Life Tasks
Task Adaptive Strategies
I. An expanding self-definition vs preoccupation with past roles and activities a. Redefine self-worth in terms of something other than work roles
b. Find NEW valued roles and activities
c. Adapt activities that one values to enable continuity within current abilities/limitations
II. Move beyond physical capabilities of young and middle adulthood vs preoccupation with current body ills and limitations a. Cope with declining physical well-being without loss of self esteem
b. Engage in mental and social activities while deemphasizing physical problems
III. Live life with concern/caring for others vs preoccupation with one’s self Appreciate how you’ve contributed to the future through:
• Relationships with younger generations
• One’s occupations
• Passing on of values to others
• ARTCART is liberating and reaffirming, artists who have plateaued become re-inspired to sell, exhibit, get grants, etc.
o Gene Cohen’s Human potential phases in the second half of life
Phase Typical Age Characteristics
1) Reevaluation phase 40’s – Early 60’s Quest energy, seeking to make life and work more gratifying and meaningful
“Midlife crisis”
2) Liberation phase 60’s – Early 70’s Creative endeavors are charged with the energy of new personal freedom
“If not now, then when?”
3) Summing-up phase 70’s+ Search for meaning in life by looking back, summing up, and giving back
Creative expression through autobiography, storytelling, volunteerism
Need to serve as “Keeper of the culture”
4) Encore phase 80’s+ Affirmation of life, finishing unfinished business, celebrating contributions

• Class discussion
o Artist identity
• Getting past the script to the deeper story
• Having to defend the artist identity
• Staking claim as an artist in order to be part of the community, but also stand out as an individual
• Competitive vs open & generous
• Conviction of artists who stay artists their whole lives vs artists who take on other jobs
• Must be like small business owners in order to market themselves, etc
• Summary of lives in a way that they choose is a way to control things at a time when they are losing control
• Creativity vs creativity/Artist vs artist
• Society uncomfortable with art as an occupation
• Having to embrace commerce vs creating art as a hobby
• Professional Artist:
1. Earn living as an artist
2. Self-recognized as an artist through peers, unions, organizations
3. Educated as an artist, public recognition as an artist
 Most important validator of work – self
• Status of artist
 Canada & Scandinavia: supported by social programs
 Japan: master artists
• STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) -> STEAM (Adds Art)
• Artists can be hard on other artists
 Trial by fire – having to suffer for art to have value
o Chinese cultural perspective
• Spoke with artist who quit art
 Government/political pressures
 2008 Olympic games
 May still be secretly creating art, but not publicly
• Without academic constraints, conceptual, more diversified
• Young artists struggling financially, only way to be validated was by the marketplace until communism ended, so art world at an earlier stage
• US: gallery system->personal exhibitions->auction house
• China: auction house = primary way to get recognition
• Being proficient with a musical instrument brings advantages in Chinese educational system

• Joan interviews Melissa Rachleff-Burtt, NYU Visual Arts Admin, Curator of forthcoming Inventing Downtown: Artist Run Galleries in New York City, 1950-1965
J What are some of the salient characteristics of the older artist community you are featuring in this forthcoming exhibition?
M First, ARTCART is truly a godsend – no one else is thinking about this last phase.
When thinking about the past, try to immerse self in the time period and see that world as I might occupy it. There is no ONE set of expectations when talking to the artists of this period – range of personalities, the way people aged & lived. I had a picture in my head of the people I’ve been studying and there is a difference between that mental image and what I encountered. I try asking about particular moments in time and even though I might notice health/mobility issues, I don’t even bring that up. Different artists have different amenities from their differing levels of monetary success. Back in their time you could get a loft or a building for cheap and some are still there, living in 1/3rd of the space and working in the other 2/3rds. More successful artists might have a staff.
Really see what they’ve saved of their own work, what they’ve exchanged with other artists. One artist, his impulses and ideas from 1959/1960, high school art projects, exploring identity, work that was never published. Experience is to try to synthesize into what has been written about work of that time and what is included in exhibit.
Expectations in later 1950’s – art conversations revolved around triumph of abstract expressionism. All white/male dominated scene, McCarthy era. Interested in what’s bubbling underneath. Curious about non-common art galleries at that time, what’s less known. Peggy Guggenheim came from Europe to NY during WWII and opened the Day Gallery, which was open until 1947. Virgina Dwan opened her gallery in 1966. But what happened in between?
In 2008 found pamphlet – 10th Street Days: Co-op galleries of the 1950’s, saw names that are well known now and started working on this project. In the 1950’s a sect of these artists born from 1920-1936 that I’ve been dealing with – they loved the extremely gestural art of the older generation, but they were mindful of the tradition of not showing work until late life (40’s+) and they decided “Why should we wait?” So they bought/rented these small pickle store galleries with a co-op nature – artists bought shares in the space. It was a break with the paradigm of the previous generation.
These artists were not convinced that abstract expressionism was the only valid art form. Claes Oldenburg ended the debate with his art as a synthesizer who sees and absorbs all. Universal humanism vs existentialism, his answer was neither – beginning of pop art, figuring out the language, subject matter of art. Lots of shapes and forms. It was a great time of claiming visual art as US dominated, rejecting European tradition. When artists stopped asking permission, both women and men, and it happened because they claimed these studio spaces.
J What was their concept of career?
M There wasn’t one really. Group started with the Reuben Gallery. All male artists invited uptown to the Green Gallery. Female artists all felt they weren’t good enough rather than recognizing the gender bias. Some joined the women’s movement in the 1970’s, but not all. It was a blind spot in society. One artist, Mary Frank, was excluded from the art community by virtue of her beauty. Men claimed to be too intimidated by her beauty to speak to her and invite her to functions.
J When does the show open?
M Catalog released next Fall/November, show opens January 20th, 2017.

• Discussion of films
o Alive Inside
• Stimulative power of art in a therapeutic way
• Challenges institutional structure of US healthcare system
• Creates a discourse around the person’s life
• Survival vs life
• To what degree can a certain piece of music be therapeutic?
• Need a person to share it with
• Music as a backdoor into the mind
• Different pathways in the brain created by music vs language
 Validated by medical professionals, ex: Nina Kraus, Northwestern University; Bruce Miller, UCSF
• Movement & music – Rhythm in the brain short-circuits disease
 61 year-old with cognitive decline, possible diagnosis of prion disease, started dancing when daughter turned on music
 Rutgers dance program for people with Parkinsons
• Eden Alternative
 Bill Thomas, bird story
 Taking care of animals
 People need stimulation
• Book recommendation: Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
• Giving baby dolls to people with dementia
• Documentary of the nun study
• Beginning of Alive Inside, nurse told him to ask yes/no questions rather than open-ended
 That’s how to communicate with people with dementia, but not how we want to communicate with ARTCART artists
o Andrew Jenks Room 335
• Struck by film that so many aspects you don’t see in a facility like that which you are able to see in the film
• Like the power outage
 The 19 year old was the one who couldn’t deal with it, but the residents were okay with no power
 He felt responsible for them
o Impressed by his non-judgmentalness & maturity
• During visitor hours, might think it was a great place for a relative to live, but seeing it as you do in the film…
• So many people discussing death
 Trusted him
• Facilities designed for visitors, not for residents
 Unlike dementia village in the Netherlands
 Here, people are warehoused
 What is it like to be treating as a person vs a patient?
 Last ARTCART, in this class, there were students with parents or grandparents in another country whom they were expected to go back and take care of after finishing college here

• Upcoming classes
o Next class 10/10
• Online
• Learning Style Inventory
• Early childhood learning
• The readings
• Next journal is due 10/10!
o 10/17
• Next in-person meeting
• Elder abuse discussion
• EmbARK training
• Either come 9am-3pm or 12pm-3pm, check document on syllabus to find out!
o 10/24
• 10am-12pm at NYU for presentation on what museums look for
o 10/31
• Print out completed learning style inventory and bring to this class to share with your partner to give you both a sense of how to work with the artists