Arts and Aging

I was privileged to have facilitated GIA’s Funder Forum on Arts in Medicine this past February in Orlando, Florida. In that role, I had the opportunity to listen to and learn from the gathered practitioners and funders. Since then, I have reflected on what for me was an exceptional day of sharing and exchange that I think benefited both the participants and the growing arts-in-medicine field. Here is some of what emerged.

One of the key issues of our time is health care. We know that it is complicated because of its vast scale of services and intimate reach into every life, family, and community in this country. The search for access to high-quality health care for millions of Americans is often difficult. Medical advances of the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries have extended the life span, cured pandemic diseases like polio, and have made it possible to manage chronic illnesses once debilitating.

The following is an abridged report prepared for Grantmakers in the Arts from The Summit on Creativity and Aging in America, held in collaboration with the 2015 White House Conference on Aging on May 18, 2015, at the National Endowment for the Arts. The summit was co-presented by the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Center for Creative Aging.

By Janet Brown, President & CEO, Grantmakers in the Arts and Angelique Power, Program Director, Culture, The Joyce Foundation, and GIA Board Member

Grantmakers in the Arts is committed to promoting racial equity in arts philanthropy and increasing support for African, Latine, Arab, Asian, and Native American (ALAANA) artists, arts organizations, and communities. Our statement of purpose for this work, published in March 2015, comes after five years of internal discussions, workshops, articles, and forums led by a small learning group consisting of social justice funders and those concerned with social justice. Our use of the term racial equity is deliberate and reflects a new shift from using language about “diversity” and “inclusion.”

A Personal Experience Informs Philanthropy

Old people have danced forever. We just forgot that for a time.
— Liz Lerman

In June, Ellen Michelson, president of Aroha Philanthropies, and I attended the first National Leadership Exchange of the National Center for Creative Aging in Washington, D.C. It was an extraordinary conference, filled with inspiration and information on this emerging field.

September 2013, 9 pages. Grantmakers In Health, 1100 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 1200, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 452-8331, gih.org.

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   Innovative Crossroads: The Intersection of Creativity, Health, and Aging (221 Kb)

36 pages, February 2013. National Endowment for the Arts, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C., 20506. (202) 682-5400. http://arts.gov/

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116 pages, May 2012. Partners for Livable Communities, 1429 21st Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20036, (202) 887-5990 www.livable.org.

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   Stories for Change (2.5Mb)

There is no doubt that the face of art and culture in the United States is changing.