New Arts Programme for People with Dementia

In conjunction with the Crawford Art gallery cork the "5 Steps to Living Well with Dementia" project has begun an outreach art programme for people with dementia and their carers. The last session was held on the 23rd July in Clonmel Museum from 2-4pm. The theme for the afternoon was "summertime" and we began by looking at two paintings by cork artists, Henry Jones Thaddeus (1859-1929) and Aloysius O'Kelly (1851-1928). The discussion that followed included everything from the clothes the people in the paintings wore to how the artist portrayed the evening light through his painting technique.  Those among us who know about painting probably appreciated this observation a little more than the rest of us!!! The staff in the museum kindly shared some of the picture postcards from their archives.  These cards dated from the 1950's and 1960's and showed scenes of the popular holiday destinations of the day, Tramore, Youghal and Clare.  Some of the postcards were written on and theses were read with great interest.  The weather, fun, food, accommodation and fellow travellers were popular topics, just proving some things don't change that much.  Very lively discussion followed with people remembering where they spent their holidays, with whom and what they did.  Making hay, milking cows (short-horns of course!!) swimming, sand castles, picnics, sunshine and rain were some of the fond memories.  There was an opportunity to make your own postcards, using watercolour paints and I have to say the results were very impressive and some people got quite competitive! After all that work a cup of tea or coffee and a nice chocolate biscuit was very well deserved. It was an extremely enjoyable afternoon and definitely a new and fun experience for all. I suppose all I can say is don't miss the next session, watch local press or our project website for details.