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Cherishing the Legacy

ART CART exhibition catalogJoin us for an exhibition of works presented by ART CART: SAVING THE LEGACY, documenting artistic expression of 20th century artists over a lifetime for the broader community. For more information, email rcac@creativeaging.org.

» Download the exhibition catalog

New York City

September 5 – October 20

New York University
Kimmel Center
Stovall Gallery, 8th Floor
60 Washington Sq. South
» Map & directions

Opening reception:
September 5, 6 – 8 pm

Artist panels: “Speaking the Legacy”
October 1, 6 – 8 pm – Room 802 Stovall Gallery
October 19, 4 – 5 pm – Room 802 Stovall Gallery

Featuring: Niki Berg, Cecily Barth Firestein, Michael Cummings, Sonia Gechtoff, Norma Greenwood, Carol Hamoy, Nancy Haynes, Susan May Tell, Morgan O’Hara, and Gilda Pervin.

Washington, DC

September 11 – 29

Corcoran College of Art + Design
Gallery 31
Corcoran Museum (NY Ave. Entrance)
500 17th Street NW
» Map & directions

Opening reception: September 11, 6 – 8 pm

Artist Panels: “Speaking the Legacy”
September 10, 2 – 4 pm – Howard University – Louis Stokes Health Sciences Library
September 12, 2 – 3:30 pm – Iona Senior Services, 4125 Albermarle St. NW
September 18, 7 – 9 pm – Corcoran Gallery, Armand Hammer Auditorium

Featuring: Akili Ron Anderson, Lila Asher, Marilyn Banner, James Brown Jr., Lilian Burwell, Rose Mosner, Marilee Shapiro, Carmen Torruella-Quander, and Ann Zahn.

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Huffington Post: “Staying Above Ground”

Linda Noeckler, PhD, Senior Vice President of the Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging and Board President, National Center for Creative Aging, discusses Above Ground and the work of the Research Center for Arts & Culture in a blog on The Huffington Post:

In my last blog I wrote about scientific evidence regarding the health benefits that mature adults derive from participating in creative and performing arts programs. Since this is the case, some may wonder if older professional artists have better health and well being. Are they poor as church mice yet happy as clams? Or is this just another of the many stereotypes about older adults that continue to permeate our culture and perspective on growing older? ….

 

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Brian Lehrer: MUSEUMS – Sort of Free, Sort of Not

Brian explores why sick leave is finally becoming law in NYC with Working Families Party state director, Bill Lipton. Then, after a new lawsuit challenges the MET’s admission prices, Brian looks at who should pay for access to NYC museums, with National Center for Creative Aging’s Joan Jeffri, Maxwell Anderson from the Dallas Museum of Art, and Paddy Johnson from Art F City. And, finally, celebrating “100 Years of Flamenco in New York City” with New York Public Library for the Performing Arts curator Jan Schmidt and flamenco scholar, K. Meira Goldberg.

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ART CART Artist China Marks interviewed in Numéro Cinq

When the artist China Marks, who specializes in amazing drawings she does with a sewing machine, offered to interview the poet H. L. Hix for Numéro Cinq, I had no idea the interview would turn into a conversation, a mutual interview, and that the conversation would metamorphose into this wonderfully intelligent, cross-genre meditation on the foundations and process of art whatever form the art takes. Not only that but the conversation takes as its starting point an essay by the poet Julie Larios published on these pages, so that NC is part of the conversation, that is, as a catalyst and locus where artists and idea come together (across continents, across disciplines, you can hear the cultural tectonic plates colliding in the background). If we were on the Left Bank, NC would be a cafe and China Marks and H. L. Hix would be leaning across a marble-topped  table sipping absinthe and talking intensely (and you would be listening, you, dear NC reader, at the next table). This conversation is packed with quotation, quotable lines, self-reflection — but China and Harvey are old friends, too, and that comes through, intense, intelligent conversation between friends. They take, as their starting point, a phrase from Richard Wilbur — confounders of category — which they both read in Julie Larios’s essay on riddles; and this conversation is all about confounding categories, crossing boundaries, connecting things that are not connected except in the minds of the artists, about play and the dramatic tensions inherent in confounded categories. A delight in every exchange — though my favourite is the bit about versos, the backs of works of art, especially the backs of China Marks’s sewn drawings.

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Saving the Legacy of Aging Artists

In many respects aging artists are a model for society, maintaining strong social networks and an amazing resilience as they grow older.

But a recent study by the Research Center for Arts and Culture (RCAC), Above Ground: Information on Artists III, revealed that 61 percent of older professional visual artists have made no preparation for their work after their death, 95 percent have not archived their work, 97 percent have no estate plan, and 20 percent have no documentation of their work at all.

Enter Joan Jeffri.


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Inside Arts Magazine: Not the Retiring Type

In a world in which retirement communities flourish, veteran arts administrators find few standards for the next phase of their careers – which often involves CReAtiVe CoNNeCtioNS to the field.

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Creative Aging: Transforming the Lives of Older Americans

“It is such a gift to have these workshops. At this time in life when there is so much loss – to have new fire!” — Patricia Hasely

Patricia Hasely is a 79-year-old participant in a writer’s workshop conducted by Rodlyn Douglas at the Goddard Riverside Community Center in New York City, sponsored by Poets and Writers.

Hasely and Douglas are part of a burgeoning movement that is enriching the lengthened lives of so many Americans. These older adults are not just enjoying the arts as spectators, they are raising their voices in song, creating dances, telling their stories, improvising theater pieces, and creating paintings and sculptures.


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ART CART: SAVING THE LEGACY Pilot Exhibition

Documenting artistic expression of 20th century artists over a lifetime for the broader community

ART CART exhibition September 2011

Download the exhibition catalog »

ART CART: SAVING THE LEGACY is an intergenerational arts legacy project that connects aging professional artists with teams of graduate students to undertake the preparation and preservation of their creative work, offering both groups an educational experience that will help shape the future of our cultural legacy (www.creativeaging.org/artcart).

The project grew directly out of research by the Research Center for Arts and Culture. Published as ABOVE GROUND, this study of 146 professional New York City aging artists revealed that artists are, in many respects, a model for society, maintaining strong social networks and an astonishing resilience as they age. Yet 61% of professional visual artists age 62+ have made no preparation for their work after their death; 95% have not archived their work; 97% have no estate plan; 3 out of every 4 artists have no will and 1 in 5 has no documentation of his work at all.

With academic input from a Columbia University-wide partnership including graduate programs in Arts Administration, Art Education, Public Health, Social Work, Oral History and Occupational Therapy, in 2010-2011, a dozen student fellows spent the fall learning about working with the aging, ageism and stereotypes, health promotion, environmental studio assessments, wellness promotion, oral history techniques, and mastering Gallery Systems EmbARK software. In the spring, interdisciplinary teams of fellows each working with a single artist, provided six artists ages 68-93 with direct, hands-on support and guidance to manage and preserve their life’s work. Each artist had a working partner to assist and learn with him/her.

This exhibition is the culmination of a pilot project whose essence lies in the works themselves which are as varied as the artists, but also in the life stories, the experiential learning and the portrait of the older artist as a model for resilience, tenacity and a lifetime of meaningful work. As a 93-year-old artist interviewed in ABOVE GROUND said, “Art is what makes me live.”

As the only institution of its kind in the country dedicated to collecting systematic information and data on individual living artists, The Research Center for Arts and Culture is uniquely prepared to facilitate the essential documentation of older artists’ work. With its current data on over 200 aging artists and over 20 years of cumulative data on artists of all disciplines and ages, the RCAC has collective information to help justify and determine artists’ needs, and a substantial platform of existing partnerships and resources on which to build. The project will establish a replicable methodology and a comprehensive toolkit for the implementation of Art Cart in other communities throughout the country through a collaboration with the National Center for Creative Aging.

Joan Jeffri, Founder and Director
ART CART: SAVING THE LEGACY
Research Center for Arts and Culture