Flathead County Library’s Creative Aging classes are part of a free, five-session program where older adults can get in touch with their artistic side.

The classes center on visual art, poetry, music and other kinds of creative endeavors, according to Bigfork branch manager Deidre McMullin. She found out about the classes through the Montana State Library and the Montana Arts Council.  

McMullin attended a training for teaching the classes, which focused on learning for older adults. 

“Just teaching classes in a way that avoids ageism and makes it easy for people to connect and build friendships,” she said.  

Kalispell art therapist Allyson Norwood Bush kicked off the series, which is being hosted at the Bigfork branch through Oct. 15. Bush said she was approached by the library to teach one of the five session classes. 

Pulling from activities and themes in her art therapy practice, Bush said “creative aging” could mean many things to many different people. But for her, it means cultivating a “vivid inner life” for oneself, paying attention to the parts that others cannot see.  

This includes having novel experiences, which helps protect against mental rigidity and creates new neural pathways as people age. Keeping the mind sharp and paying attention to physical health, as well as one’s openness to connect with others. 

“Just cultivating that open mind, body and spirit. Like, how do I relate with myself and also with all that is a big part of aging, right? And giving back some of the wisdom we've collected,” she said.  

Bush said she would try to incorporate some movement, dance and breathing exercises into the sessions, as well as some of the activities she uses for her art therapy patients. One warm-up will ask participants to draw a human form and color their interior thoughts and feelings based on what others can’t see.  

“It’s like using color to describe the feeling inside the body, I call it a body scan. So really, it's throwing a spotlight on our feelings in the body, both emotions and physical pain, and then using this technique of coming up with a color that describes it and making a map right? Like here I have tension, anger, disgust,” she said.  

She said children really exceed in this exercise, showing an example of a body scan from a patient that was mostly colored pink, meant to represent her all-encompassing “love of bugs.” 

Other activities included altered books, which is the process of making old books or scrapbooks into art. Keeping with the theme of hosting the classes at the library, Bush said it would be an interesting way to tell the life story of someone who has lived a long time. 

“An altered book is basically just using a book and ripping up. I have a lot of techniques on doing this ... You collect all sorts of things, and you can do blackout poetry, which is really fun,” Bush said. 

At a recent class, Bush expressed excitement to meet everyone who signed up. 

“That's a lot of bravery to just jump in and say, ‘I'm going to commit five or six weeks of my life to this and I don't know what's going to happen.’ How cool is that? I mean, I think anybody that self-selects into that kind of a program is already creatively aging, and I'm probably going to learn as much from them as they're going to learn from me,” Bush said.  

Artist Jenna Justice was also excited to meet her new class, which will focus on mixed media techniques for every session. A mixed-media artist herself, Justice said there will be both traditional and non-traditional techniques, like collage, inking, layering, metal leaf and hot glue.  

Participants will walk away with a work of art after every session, culminating in a larger, final project, that will incorporate all of the techniques learned during the class. This will fulfill the class’s requirement to hold a culminating event at the end of the class, outlined in the grant for the programming.  

“The art is about experimentation, it's about letting go of perceived rules that we have surrounding art. I am an abstract artist, so if you want me to paint a cat, we're in trouble,” Justice said. “That's not what I bring people, I bring that sense of how we can create art that is beautiful and surprising and opens our imagination even more broadly. So, the pieces that they will come away with will be abstract in nature.” 

Justice, who teaches art classes throughout the valley, said she doesn’t expect these sessions to be any different just because they are aimed at an older population. Art is so personal, especially when it’s abstract, and she was excited to see what participants put on the page.  

Students will be given the tools, but not the subject they should create, which will produce very different results from person to person, she said.  

"I think that with older adults, it's the same as working with kiddos, it’s the same as working with women, with couples, or folks with disabilities—we go into it and say, ‘What does your imagination tell you? What is relaxing for you about this process, what reduces your stress? What makes your heart sing?” Justice said.  

Working with different techniques will also give her the chance to get to know her participants and see who they are as artists. Rather than perfecting one kind of medium or seeing one painting, she’ll get to see their progress with multiple kinds of art. 

“You start to get a sense of what somebody's artistic personality is. Sometimes you don't get that with one class. Because sometimes, I'll sit down to paint, and it doesn't look like other things I've painted, but if you look at my whole body of work, you start to go, ‘Oh, now I know who she is as an artist.’ And I think that's the experience I'll get to have as a facilitator ... and that's a fun journey to watch,” she said.  

The next Creative Aging class with available slots is hosted by mixed-media textile artist Megan Canning and takes place Oct. 28 through Dec. 2 (skipping Veterans Day on Nov. 11.) Canning will be teaching a slow stitching sampler class, where participants will be exploring a variety of embroidery stitches.  

McMullin said the initial classes were funded through a $3,000 grant from the Flathead County Library Foundation. She is hoping to find a new funding source so the class can become a mainstay for the library’s adult programming. 

For more information, including sign-ups for the next Creative Aging class with Megan Canning, visit flatheadcountylibrary.org.

Taylor Inman may be reached at 758-4440 or [email protected].

    Participants interact with Play-Doh during an introductory activity in Art Therapist Allyson Norwood Bush's Creative Aging class at Flathead County Library Bigfork on Wednesday, Sept. 17. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
  

    Participants interact with Play-Doh during an introductory activity in Art Therapist Allyson Norwood Bush's Creative Aging class at Flathead County Library Bigfork on Wednesday, Sept. 17. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)