Connection & Collaboration at State Arts Agency Training Events

As part of our ongoing work with the National Assembly of State Arts Agency's Leveraging State Investments in Creative Aging initiative, we trained over 200 programming staff and teaching artists from Ohio, Alabama, and New Jersey this past May and June alone. Next, we will continue work with agencies in Oklahoma, Nebraska, Connecticut, Utah and Delaware.

Ohio Arts Council's Creative Aging Summit, Columbus, OH

During 2021-2022, Lifetime Arts trained a cohort of Ohio teaching artists and state arts agency staff to plan, design, promote, implement, evaluate, and sustain successful creative aging programming in their state. The Ohio Arts Council also invited Lifetime Arts to lead a series of additional creative aging workshops during their 2022 Creative Aging Summit in Columbus. Many of the summit attendees were also members of the original training cohort.

Annie Montgomery, Senior Education Designer & Trainer, and Gahlia Eden, Education Producer, led sessions on "Shifting Culture," "Thinking about the Future of Creative Aging," and "Planning the Future/Moving Towards Action."

L to r: Gahlia Eden, Training Producer, and Annie Montgomery, Senior Educator Designer & Trainer, Lifetime Arts; Jarred Small and Chiquita Mullins Lee, Arts Learning Coordinators, and Donna S. Collins, Executive Director, Ohio Arts Council

In addition to the workshops, selected summit attendees presented on creative aging programs that they successfully delivered after the initial training. Two examples:

• Teaching artist, Lyn Ford, led an innovative storytelling program through her residency at Jenkins Terrace. Ford explained how she guided participants through breathing exercises using kazoos, with the goal of not only improving their breathing, but also learning how to speak “colorfully and with intonation”. For more information on Ford’s work, check out this article in Columbus Monthly.
• Through her residency at Village in The Ville, teaching artist, Candace Mazur-Darman, led Village members through a virtual six-week improvisation program. Participants learned how to speak with authority and improv scenes where they generated problems and engaged audience members to find a solution. During the summit, participants performed their improv scenes with the mantra, “Aging, so cool! Everybody’s doing it!”

“This was the first time I got to witness the upshot of our training, first-hand, and experience the powerful relationships that have been forged as a result. It was so cool to hear teaching artists and coordinators reflect and share about the programs they led as a team.”

— Gahlia Eden

Professional Development Spurs New Thinking and Practices

In addition to the Ohio cohort, we also trained cohorts for the Alabama State Council on the Arts (ASCA) and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

Said an Alabama staffer after learning about the creative aging arts education model and the SAFE Planning technique: "This is a strong model for any project an organization proposes, and I will use it to mentor organizations coming to ASCA for grant proposal advice, and in my assessment of programs.” After the New Jersey training, we learned that "...having Lifetime Arts in the room as facilitator... inspired me to see unique perspectives from angles that we didn't expect."

Upcoming State Agency Trainings

* Upcoming statewide training for Connecticut, Utah, and Delaware are independent from the Leveraging State Investments in Creative Aging initiative. The upcoming training for Utah and Delaware are "repeat engagements" which resulted from the work we did with the two agencies as part of that work.