What Can Catching Flies Teach Us About Creative Aging?
I recently read the book The Fly Trap by Fredrik Sjöberg, which I highly recommend to museum colleagues, for reasons which get to the very essence of museums and creative aging. Sjöberg is an entomologist who lives on the island of Runmarö …
Celebrating Personal Histories: The Neon Museum’s creative aging performance workshops
In 2018, twenty organizations enrolled in a special museum cohort of Aroha Philanthropies’ Seeding Vitality Arts program. With funding from Aroha, and training provided by Lifetime Arts, these museums are developing high-quality, intensive …
How Are Older People Different?
It’s always risky to bundle a demographic into one description, but very credible research has revealed a great deal about the over-fifty demographic in the United States: who they are, in general, and what they seek in their lives. As …
The Stages of Aging
Senior…Elder…Older American…Aging Boomer…Octogenarian…Centenarian Have you ever thought about how many decades are contained in these references we make to old age? There are almost fifty years between becoming eligible for an AARP card …
Taking Account
It’s natural that people tend to “take account” of their lives as they get older. They become interested in reviewing where they and their ancestors have been, and pay increased attention to matters of legacy, especially pertaining to …
The Intergenerational Museum
“I consider that [the old] have gone before us along a road we must all travel in our turn, and it is good that we should ask them of the nature of that road.” –Socrates, The Republic In an article called “Aging and Learning: The …
You’re Doing What?!: Becoming “The Founder”
Museum professionals have creative aging journeys of their own, which might mean figuring out how best to cap off a career in the field. But in today’s world, with more people enjoying active and engaged lifestyles later into life, …
Creative Aging and Social Prescribing
“You’re doing what?!” This is often the response one gets when they say they are involved in the field of creative aging. I am asked it a lot, from people who want to know what on earth “creative aging” even is. When I begin to describe it …
Praise Be to AARP
One of the many benefits of advanced age is that one can become a member of AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons. But despite the name, the word “retired” seems to be losing its applicability, if one reads any of AARP’s …
Mystic Chords of Memory: Writing workshops as museum creative aging programs
Nearly a career ago, I visited a mentor and friend at the historical society he directed on a Saturday afternoon. As we sat in his office chatting, I heard a phone ring in the society’s library a long way down a cavernous hall. It rang and …
