Creative Aging

Washington Home Center, Congress Heights

While experiencing Sam Gilliam’s painting April at the museum, Iona’s Washington Home Center’s participants wondered about the artistic process, noticing unexpected combinations of color and the work’s monumental size.

In Washington Home Center’s art studio, inspired by Gilliam’s experimentation, Iona artists playfully painted silk scarves with tissue paper. After layering torn and cut pieces of bleeding tissue on wet silk, the artists folded the silk rectangles into small bundles, spraying water on the silk as they folded. When the silk dried, the tissue paper floated off, revealing new colors and shapes.

Iona artists delighted in learning about Gilliam, who influenced generations of local and national artists. In 2016, the 82-year-old artist said: “Most painters are better when they’re older … And they have something to say because they practiced, made a lot of mistakes, and they’re cultured.”

Wellness & Arts Center, Tenleytown

After exploring the texture, pattern, and scenery within Henri Matisse’s Interior with Egyptian Curtain and Pierre Bonnard’s The Open Window, participants responded by creating their own window scenes. First, they designed the curtains, using bleeding tissue paper to dye silk scarves. The process produced unique patterns through repeated layering of the tissue paper and spraying with water. To accompany these curtains, they painted interior and exterior scenes in watercolor. Each artwork reflects a window into the life of its artist and how they see the world.

“I like seeing everything close enough to get a good grip, but far enough to get a bigger grip.”—Emily Hewitt, Iona participant

These artworks were created during a series of weekly workshops integrating music and art. Care partners were invited to attend with their loved one, working side by side, or use the time for their own self-care. Each session included live music, guided dance movement, creative engagement, and art making inspired by works from The Phillips Collection. The workshops established an inclusive, non-judgmental, social space that encouraged participation at all levels of engagement and offered ways to connect with imagination, kind attention, and playful creativity.

Through guided, open-ended, imaginative inquiry of Matisse’s Interior with Egyptian Curtain and Janet Taylor Pickett’s And She Was Born, the group collaborated on poetic responses. Then, accompanied by live music, they explored personal responses with mixed-media collages. The collages inspired by these reflections echo the richly textured and patterned world of Matisse and the pride and personal agency of Taylor Pickett. In response to Matisse’s still life, participants composed a collaborative poem.