Project Description

 

Four teaching artists will creatively engage 40 underconnected older adults in two regions of Wisconsin in the Wisconsin Tele-Stories project—led by project partner TimeSlips, a Milwaukee based international leader in creative aging work. Engagements will be weekly via one 30-minute phone call over an eight-week period. Each call will include a story-shaping session that is framed by what TimeSlips terms a “beautiful question” (no right or wrong answer) designed to inspire wonder and imagination. Older adults will also go deeper with the artist in sequential arts learning and practice, developing their own skills in art making. The shape that the art will take will depend on the artistic practice of their artist partner—potentially visual art forms, spoken word, creative writing or storytelling. A lead artist will mentor the four artists throughout the eight-week period, which will culminate in each group of 10 older adults and artists cocreating an artwork—four cocreated pieces in all. These, together with individual pieces created by the older adults and the teaching artists during the course of this project, will be shared in a culminating virtual showcase. Additionally, any Wisconsin artist interested in working with elders will participate in a best practices session.