Urban Gateways’ new creative aging initiative partnered 12 teens from seven Chicago high schools and 18 elders as part of an eight-week summer 2015 program between Urban Gateways and Montgomery Place, a senior living facility in Hyde Park. Participants explored the theme of Home as teaching artist Grace Needlman led them through collaborative artmaking. Their final 3D artistic depictions of “home” were displayed for the community on August 14. The Hyde Park Art Center even picked up this project and exhibited the final artworks from October 9-11. The creative output from Crosswalk was incredible, as were the friendships forged between students and seniors as they worked closely together. Montgomery Place resident Marilyn Weigensberg explained:
“We began to know our young partners. One who worked on our ‘home’…worked the entire time on the entrance. He showed patience and resolve, figured him for an engineer or doctor. Others showed other great talents, leadership, goal orientation, hard workers and great sense of humor…Thank you for letting me be part of the fun. I learned a few things about myself and you would think that at 82 I should know. Shows we are all learning all the time.”
You can read the Hyde Park Herald’s take on this program right here.
Photos by Susan Degrane and Waldemar Reichert.