Living in the moment can be one of the arts’ best gifts, lifting us out of the everyday and out of the wider picture. Maybe this is all the more important in older age, opening up space to imagine, to enjoy, to create, to produce or just to be.
Silver Sunday ( the first Sunday in October) has now run for several years and this year it’s part of Age UK for the first time. By inspiring individuals and organizations to arrange events for older people and creating a space to publicize and share these events, it’s a celebration of enjoying later life, and a practical, tangible way to build community. Looking through the Silver Sunday website (https://silversunday.org.uk) there’s such a variety of indoor, outdoor and remote events, whether eating and drinking, sports, music, dance, social get togethers, or art and craft. Events may be held in community centres, parks, care homes, online, anywhere at all.
As “creative health” continues to expand, a lot is happening to draw in older people. Think CADA (the Creative Ageing Development Agency), Arts 4 Dementia, the National Day Of Arts In Care Homes and the Family Arts Campaign’s Age-Friendly Standards. More and more, co-creation is central – ensuring that older people themselves shape arts for wellbeing, sharing their lived experience and what works for them, allowing creative health to be genuine and to reflect older people’s priorities.
Why should arts for wellbeing look any different for older people, you might ask. And it’s obviously true that wellbeing is wellbeing at any age, with arts and creativity boosting confidence, purpose, concentration and community. Yet highlighting co-creation can help root out generalisation and recognise the diversity of tastes, preferences and needs. It might show older people want to go on experimenting, or it might place value on the constancy that arts can represent at a time when a lot is slipping away from people’s grasp.
When I surveyed people about arts in older age, 71% felt that older people are less willing than other age groups to talk openly about mental health. This persisting stigma or embarrassment may reduce participation in arts for wellbeing or make older people less happy to use art to express thoughts and feelings directly. But there are so many other ways the arts can help, with easing boredom and loneliness & giving purpose the most positive impacts cited by those surveyed. Expressive art is part of creative health, but only a part.
One way I think art and craft could particularly enrich older people’s lives would see older people making things to give to others (of any age) – maybe rock art to display locally, or handmade cards for patients at a local hospital or hospice. Giving, not always receiving – being in a position to brighten someone else’s life, not always the beneficiary. Using shared art to boost wellbeing is important and sometimes overshadowed. So I’m just starting the Make To Give Challenge to encourage this (https://medley.live/make-to-give)
Practicalities can also impact on arts for wellbeing for older people, with issues such as sight or hearing loss, dementia or declining motor skills (more common in older age) requiring different approaches. Drawing on a tablet can enable stroke survivors to go on creating, turning to abstract art may prolong creativity for people with sight loss, and an older person with dementia is more likely to respond to music they first heard during their teens or twenties (the “musical memory bump years”) than to more recent songs.
It’s all about discovering what works. And Silver Sunday can be a fantastic way to get started!