Flower Power

Imagine this: you follow up on a lead for a volunteer opportunity doing something you know you'll love, and you end up getting a job doing what you've been dreaming of for the last year. This literally happened to me a couple weeks ago!

As we traveled across the country this last year, a recurring notion had me wishing we had a set schedule of where we'd be and when. You see, I really had a hankering for some senior art time. I kept thinking, if I just knew where we were going, I could call up some senior centers to host CraftWithAnna classes. If I had an inkling of when we'd arrive, I could have tested this adventuresome theory in Sioux Falls SD while visiting my Great Uncle Grant last fall, but even that didn't go as planned (still had a terrific visit though so no complaints there).
I'd always enjoyed having my grandmother, Ruth, attend my classes. Seeing a self-proclaimed non-artist have fun and walk away with a completed project is always a win in my book, but when it was my best friend and role model/Grandma who was making that magic happen, I would be in seventh heaven. She was always surprised that she could make something so marvelous. I of course knew that her talent was just hiding ;-)
 I had the opportunity to paint with Grandma and her friends at their senior living facility in Tacoma and marveled at how alert and participatory the residents were during our craft session. I was seeing a whole other side of their personalities! Working with the homeschooled students as Two Waters Arts Alliance introduced intergenerational art classes through a partnership with The Mustard Seed Project cemented the desire to mix up the age palette and see what creativity could blossom.
Now here in Murfreesboro NC I've made some acquaintances who volunteer at the local Senior Nutrition Centers and were encouraging me to do so also, an answer to my prayers it seemed. Well little did I know, Hertford County was looking for a teacher just like me to lead regular art classes in an effort to ward off the onset of Alzheimer's and Dementia. Yes, studies have shown that adults who frequently partake in creative exercises are less likely to have brains that turn sentences into word salad! And studies have also shown that for those already starting to lapse into memory and cognitive loss issues, spending time creating can help them to pull stories and thoughts out of the abyss and express them in what might at the very least be nonverbal ways. Well if that doesn't all sound like a lot of good reason to keep on making as much as possible, I don't know what!
I'm so excited by what's ahead. Not just for the class content I'm planning- April is all about those Spring Flowers in Watercolors, but for the relationships that will form during our hours together. Every Make It Monday morning I'll be leading a Fine Art Fellowship at the Winton Center for Aging and visitors can CraftWithAnna Every Other Tuesday in Ahoskie. Supplies will be provided by Hertford County (and my personal stash), occasionally we may have special events where nominal fees are charged but for the most part it will be free to learn!
What a blessing. For me, for the seniors, for their families as they produce "Art for Alzheimers..."
It all feels like a very positive affirmation that, after all the looking, we have landed in a place that is a perfect match for my skill sets at least. With Ray's work truck making a local appearance in the near future, it may soon be business as usual for the Bradshaws!