Silverwood Residency with Seth Eberle - 2 hours
This week I had my first experience in the classroom at Silverwood. I assisted Seth Eberle with the SPARK! program. SPARK is a monthly program for people with memory loss and their care partners.
The hour started with a poem read in a call and response style, and then moved into a talk about winter activities and the way the ways that some have derived from necessity. Snowshoeing and ice skating were originally for transportation, not recreation! We then moved into an art-making activity.
The activities for SPARK typically draw inspiration from the work on display in the gallery space at Silverwood. Right now, MCAD grad Kerri Mulcare has a show titled "Living | Mutable" up at Silverwood. One medium that Kerri uses is collage, so in SPARK, people made collages on jar lids. Seth did a short demo to explain the qualities of mod podge as most people had not worked with or heard of it before. I helped hand out materials that consisted mostly of cut-outs in heart, circle, and square shapes. Each paper shape had patterns or images from nature. During work time Seth and I chatted with the participants and helped them find shapes or colors they were looking for.
This was my first time working with adults (or anyone over the age of 11 for that matter) and I struggled at first with what to say and how to be helpful without being too pushy or taking over. I think I feel less qualified when I work with people older than me but that is just a personal reservation that I can get over with time and experience. After the activity, Seth led a discussion about one of Kerri's artworks that he brought into the classroom. A screen print of a swan. One thing I noticed that felt important in this program is that the questions were about what was directly in front of everyone, what they could see. (What is this? What should we name it?) Seth opened up a conversation and wrote responses on a whiteboard. He would not ask questions like what does this remind you of or where have you seen something like this because those types of questions can be difficult for people with memory loss.
Seth often ends the program with a sing-a-long but there were only six people in attendance due to the -20 degree windchill! Instead, we watched a live stream of swans on the Mississippi in Monticello Minnesota after the swan print prompted a discussion about swan wintering and migration.