Lifetime Arts is thrilled to announce that its Co-Founder/CEO, Maura O’Malley, has been named a 2024 AARP Purpose Prize® Award Fellow. The AARP Purpose Prize® Award is a national recognition that honors a select group of people aged 50-plus who have proven that they are using their knowledge and life experience to make a difference. As part of this award, Lifetime Arts will receive $10,000 and a year of technical support to help deepen and expand its creative aging work nationally.
On Monday, May 20, the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) held a panel titled, “Artful Aging: What Museums and Arts are Learning from Each Other about Creative Aging” during their annual conference in New Orleans. Ed Friedman, Executive Director at Lifetime Arts moderated the panel which also featured Annie Montgomery, Director of Education at Lifetime …
On Friday, May 17, the Association of Teaching Artists (ATA), the oldest, independent organization serving teaching artists in the country, held its 2019 Awards ceremony in New York City, to honor artist educators who have made a significant impact on the field of Teaching Artistry and to kick-off Teaching Artist Appreciation Week (May 20-27). Lifetime …
This week long training program draws people from around the country and focuses on the role of the arts in healthcare and creative aging, providing theoretical and didactic approaches to implementing and sustaining high-quality arts programming in a variety of settings serving older adults across the aging spectrum. Lifetime Arts is a regular presenter at …
October 2018 On October 25, our Executive Director, Ed Friedman, delivered the opening Keynote Address, “Creative Aging in Community Settings” at the Brookdale Foundation Group’s 2018 Annual Conference held at the Marriott Hotel in Teaneck, New Jersey. The conference was attended by over 200 people representing organizations from 35 states. The Group’s major initiatives are: …
The Westchester Public/Private Partnership for Aging Services sponsors the Westchester County Senior Hall of Fame, celebrating outstanding older adults in this New York state county for their achievements and contributions to their communities and beyond. Since 1983 over 1,100 seniors have been inducted into this prestigious group at the awards luncheon that hosts over 500 …
This week, Stria, a new media platform focusing on the longevity market, published a column by our co-founder and executive director, Ed Friedman, on retirement choice and how those developing products and messaging for this demographic might think differently about their approach. Visit strianews.com to read Ed’s column and to explore trends, topics, ideas, and …
Photo by Diego Jimenez on Unsplash A recent communication from the Automobile Club of America (AAA) has caused me to take a slight detour from my musings on art and aging. The communication in question is titled “55 Reasons It’s Great to Be Over 55.” I’ll skip over the implication that we have to be convinced …
In 2005, Ed and I bumped into each other as we volunteered on a “creative aging” committee and recognized each other from our NYC arts work, dating back to the ‘80s. We started to talk – and kept on talking about what could/should happen to improve “senior programming”. We didn’t set out to create an …
A little more than 10 years ago Maura and I sat at her dining room table. This was not a dream. We had in fact started a not-for-profit organization just as the recession was hitting. We got off to a great start though, and feverishly planned our next steps. In the midst of this discussion …
Told ya! Those of us in the non-profit arts sector are accustomed to constantly arguing for the value of the arts, but making a case for the importance of arts education for older adults is yet another hurdle to overcome. When The Creativity and Aging Study led by Dr. Gene Cohen was published in 2006 …
I am about to commit a blasphemy. Here goes: MAKING ART IS NOT FUN. While I am loathe to encourage the either/or ethos that seemingly pervades every aspect of our lives, there seems to be a disconnect between those who strive to make art, and those for whom it’s of little or only passing interest. …
As I inch slowly to retirement or cutting back my time (I’ve been saying this for three years now) I am inundated with examples of how I “should” be spending my leisure time. Much of the propaganda about retirement extols the virtue of the removal of work related stress. I’m wondering if “stress” is getting …
It’s one thing to sit at my desk and write about arts and aging, or talk to people and help them envision and implement arts programs. It’s quite another thing to be a participant in the process of art making. In the many years that I’ve been an arts administrator I’ve tried to keep a …
One Is the Loneliest A New York Times article by Paula Span talked about the dangers of isolation and loneliness in older adults. Ms. Span cites research at the University of California, San Francisco which found that those who reported loneliness were more likely to develop difficulties with activities of daily living. Of those surveyed …
Ashton Applewhite was recently named Influencer of the Year by Next Avenue atop their list of 50 Influencers of Aging for 2016. A writer based in Brooklyn, New York, Ashton is the author of the recently released (and enthusiastically reviewed) This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism. Applewhite blogs at her website, This Chair Rocks, has written …
Now what? Most of my friends are either about to retire or recently moved past it. For the people who are currently retired, they run the gamut. Those in more than fine financial shape (not too many) frequently travel to visit friends, or just get away and explore. At the other end of the retirement …
Why Work? We just celebrated Labor Day, and I’ve been thinking a lot about my relationship to work. Claudia Shear’s play, Blown Sideways Through Life, is a one person autobiographical tour through the litany of the sixty-six jobs she held up to that point in her life. It was an Off-Broadway hit in the early …
In my effort to have these monthly missives reflect days or months that are observed annually, I considered Nectarine Month, National Drive Thru Day, Barbie-in-a-Blender Day, Sports Cliché Day, and many others. I fall back, however, to the most obvious- Independence Day. It made me think about our individual independence. That enviable quality held in …
Father’s Day is this month. Two things come to mind: 1. Where are the men? In our Creative Aging workshops around the country, no matter where we look or what arts discipline is offered, the ratio of women to men is about 8.5:1. It’s too simple to say that women live longer than men, and so …
By Ed Friedman Old?…Yeah… So? May has been designated Older Americans Month (OAM) by the Administration on Aging since 1963. OAM acknowledges the contributions of older people in the U.S. led by the Administration for Community Living, and the annual observance offers the opportunity to learn about, support, and celebrate our nation’s older citizens. So… …
By Ed Friedman Shush! It’s National Library Week (April 10-16). But rather than whisper we’d like to loudly acknowledge all the great work that emanates from libraries throughout the country. Of course, at Lifetime Arts, we have long recognized the value of public libraries as community cultural centers. Additionally, they are safe havens, oases if …
Bill Wertheim What is your primary artistic medium? Writing, both memoir and poetry. How did you get started as a teaching artist? I was a middle school English teacher for 4 years during the late 1960s, and made writing projects the center of my teaching. In 1976, a poet-friend told me about the possibility of …
On April 18, Lifetime Arts co-founders Maura O’Malley and Ed Friedman received the 2013 National Library Week Recognition Award from the Westchester Library System (WLS) for their outstanding contribution to public libraries.
For the second time in a year, Preserving Your Memory magazine, a publication of the Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation, has profiled Lifetime Arts’ Creative Aging in Libraries Project sponsored by MetLife Foundation. “With this new set of creative aging programs, MetLife Foundation is helping us share Lifetime Arts’ successful program model with major …
