Art and the Needs of the Older Adult.

Abstract

A rt is as ancient as a cave painting yet as youthful as a toddler's scribblings. Art is ageless to its patrons and to its practitioners alike. Vita Ostrander, president of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), says Creativity is not limited by age. It is a force that can be sustained and expressed by the middle-aged and elderly as well as the young (1982, p. 12). She refers to Hugo Musterberg's Crowning Life which examines the works of Georgia O'Keeffe at age 97, Maria Martinez at 100, and Frank Lloyd Wright at 90. Musterberg says, What these elderly artists tell us, is that we too, in the last stage of life can continue to explore both ourselves and the world around us (Ostrander, 1980, p. 12). The natural process of aging is all too often confused with social obsolescense. The Gray Panthers have called it the Detroit Syndrome, old cars, traded for new, become a scrap heap (Offir, 1974). According to Osgood, Societies that place a high value on age have low suicide rates in their older population. When societies modernize and industrialize, the rates of elderly self-destruction increase (1985, p. xxvii). In the United States we do not value the aged, and therefore many of the aged do not value themselves. However, through art the older adult can avoid the negative experience of ageism. Art is Timeless