In March 2024, Lifetime Arts launched a brand new training course, Inclusive by Design: Engaging All Older Adult Learners. Designed as a follow-up to Creative Aging Foundations, this course enables teaching artists to deepen their practice and helps program leaders ensure creative aging courses are meeting the widest range of older adult needs. Lifetime Arts’ …
This summer, Lifetime Arts had the opportunity to train hundreds of teaching artists, library workers, museum educators, and arts organization staff in Missouri, Wyoming, Hawaii, Tennessee, and Arizona as part of our major projects Advancing Creative Aging Through State Library Leadership and Vitality Arts Project for Art Museums and in partnership with the Phoenix Center for the Arts, Indiana Arts Commission, and Creative Aging in Memphis. These creative aging leaders will go on to impact the lives of more than 3,500 older adults in this year alone. Below are training highlights and reflections.
We are deeply saddened by the recent passing of Ann deVere, a veteran teaching artist, architect, and Lifetime Arts Trainer. As a native New Yorker with a visual arts concentration in printmaking, Ann taught classes and workshops in public schools, cultural centers, and arts organizations throughout NYC, in addition to implementing arts programming for all ages. Throughout her teaching artist career, she engaged her students in critical discourse, concept development, and creative problem solving — all the while drawing upon their imaginations. Her students developed a sense of their own capabilities, discovered their ideas have value, and learned how they can enrich the environments around them.
If there's one thing that we can take away from our collaborative work in 2022, it's that responsive, purposeful, and accessible arts education programming is a foundational pillar for lifelong learning. This work can only be achieved when every older adult is seen, valued, creative, proud, and part of a community. We couldn’t have accomplished this work without the abundant support of our staff, trainers, partners, and funders.
From 2021-2022, Lifetime Arts trained and coached nearly 1,000 teaching artists, librarians, and community-based organization staff across 22 states on building creative aging programs, partnerships and practices via the National Assembly of State Arts Agency’s (NASAA) Leveraging State Investments in Creative Aging Initiative.
Our final training sessions with state art agencies in Oklahoma and Nebraska concluded in October. In November, Lifetime Arts staff and members from the Utah Division of Arts & Museums and Ohio Arts Council presented the impact of this initiative at NASAA’s 2022 virtual Creative Aging Institute. Read on to learn more about these engagements and how state art agencies are building on the success of this initiative
This fall, we trained 100+ teaching artists, library programmers, arts council staff and stakeholders through continued partnerships with the Connecticut Office of the Arts, Delaware Division of the Arts, Utah Division of Arts & Museums and Michigan Arts and Cultural Council. Our work with these state agencies builds on projects they launched with Lifetime Arts’ support through the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies’ (NASAA) Leveraging State Investments in Creative Aging Initiative (May 2021-September 2022).
From May 19-22, 2022, museum and arts educators from across the U.S. reunited in-person at the American Alliance of Museums' Annual Meeting & Museum Expo in Boston, Massachusetts to explore and address the pressing issues, challenges, and opportunities that museums are facing today.
During the conference, Lifetime Arts delivered the workshop, "Creative Aging: Paving the Way for Lifelong Learning," to museum leaders and educators. Lifetime Arts also participated on a panel which featured our museum programming partners.
n the Leveraging State Investments in Creative Aging Initiative supported by E.A. Michelson Philanthropy, Lifetime Arts partnered with the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies to grow their creative aging programs, practices, and partnerships with 21 state arts agencies across the country. In this post, teaching artists and organizational staff share their insights on the impact that our training has made in their practices, institutions, and communities. Additionally, the Lifetime Arts team shares insights on working with our partners and trainees.
The New York State Creative Aging Initiative, an innovative partnership between The New York State Council on the Arts, The New York State Office for the Aging, and Lifetime Arts launched during the middle of the pandemic concluded in February 2022. Lifetime Arts trained and coached staff members from 7 area agencies on aging and nearly 70 New York state based teaching artists to plan, design, and implement 14 remote creative aging programs throughout the state.
On September 30, Lifetime Arts’ Director of Education, Annie Montgomery and Education Associate, Julie Kline, will deliver an interactive virtual session on the topic of creative aging programming during COVID-19, part of the 2020 Louisiana Arts Summit and hosted by the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge in partnership with the Louisiana Division of the Arts.
On August 25, Lifetime Arts' Education Associate, Julie Kline, will deliver the virtual workshop, "Creative Aging During COVID," part of the 2020 Mid-Atlantic Teaching Artists Virtual Retreat. This event will take place via online video conferences over a period of four weeks, from August 10 through September 2, 2020.
Julie co-facilitates Lifetime Arts’ trainings across the country, assists with the design and development of training curriculum, and supports all of Lifetime Arts' education efforts.
To meet the growing demand for Creative Aging programming across the U.S., for the first time ever, the National Guild for Community Arts Education introduced a Creative Aging Track at their 82nd national conference held recently in Austin, TX. The Conference brought together more than 700 leaders and educators from all backgrounds to share knowledge, …
Lifetime Arts conducted several training events in March to support the arts organizations, teaching artists, and senior center staff offering Creative Aging programming in NYC as part of the NYC Creative Aging Initiative, made possible through the generous support of the New York Community Trust, and offered in partnership with the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging …
“I appreciated the enthusiasm of the presenters and the possibility of inspiring my community.” On April 4 and 5, in continuation of a statewide training being conducted by Lifetime Arts, Education Director, Annie Montgomery, and teaching artist, Julie Kline, traveled to northern Wisconsin to deliver two full-day professional development workshops on Creative Aging programming for public librarians …
In an effort to meet the growing, nationwide demand for our professional development services, we held a train-the-trainer event at our headquarters in New Rochelle, NY on March 25, 26 and 28. For this series, we invited our already established master teaching artists on our roster of trainers, Antonia Perez and Julie Kline, and identified …
Julie Kline What is your primary artistic medium? Theater – actor, director, writer, producer. How did you get started as a teaching artist? I started teaching theater in college – for kids all ages from 4 to 18. I was going to acting conservatory at The Theater School, DePaul University in Chicago and would go …
