Our third Creative Community Committee (C3) gathering was just before Thanksgiving, and still over 63 seniors, advocates, artists and program staff gathered together. We planned artistic pathways to a Santa Cruz County beyond senior isolation.
Stacey began with an overview of our steps so far: generating our goals for the exhibition, choosing artists to help us express our vision of isolation and a community full of connection.
Next we voted on the exhibition title: We’re Still Here: Stories of Seniors and Social Isolation won the popular vote (and the electoral college!)
Each of the artists introduced their work goals for this session before we broke into workshops at six stations:
Station #1 Gina: Photo Stories: Discussing the isolation issues that will be illustrated by interested seniors/photographers
Station #2 Ariel: Future of SC: Drawing quilt squares of what a world without loneliness would look like.
Station #3 Wes: Audio Stories: Generating questions and stories about our lives, asking who wants to be recorded?
Station #4 Jeff: Action Cards: Brainstorming direct actions visitors can take in our organizations to end senior social isolation.
Station #5 Cid: Choreographing Empathy: Brainstorming on the scenes and participation possibilities
Station #6 Ry: Game of Life: Discussing the life experience triggered our realization that we are seniors.
We also made a call for all county seniors to submit art that will be included in the show. These invitations are available in English here. Also available in Spanish here. The invitation is very broad including both 2D and 3D art of different sizes.
Work will be be accepted based on three criteria:
- Is the artist a Santa Cruz County Senior
- Does it fit the size requirements (see details)
- Does it illustrate loneliness or isolation as represented by the artist.
See more details here. In order to plan the layout, we need to know how many pieces of art we are including; so an application and a picture need to be submitted by February 14. The artwork itself does not need to be finished and submitted until March 29.
See the Exhibition
Explore the final artful product of these conversations in the exhibition.