This text explores how art education can address the needs of older adults as learners, makers, and teachers of art in formal and informal settings. It combines perspectives of educators, professors, therapists, and artists on what is meant by creative aging and the ways art education can support the health and well-being of this population.
Research and practice in the field of art education has evolved well beyond the K–12 art classroom and students, but addressing specific needs and potential of our nation’s aging population has been largely overlooked.
This collection of essays and research clearly attests to the life-affirming value of the arts and is a significant contribution to literature in the field. Multiple realities of aging are deftly woven alongside hopeful strategies for creative engagement and intergenerational connection. All of us who have elders in our professional and/or personal lives, or anyone wishing to creatively enhance the aging process will embrace this volume.
- Melody Milbrandt, Professor Emerita of Art Education, Georgia State University, and author of Art for Life (with Tom Anderson)
Melanie Davenport is Associate Professor of Art Education in the Welch School of Art and Design at Georgia State University, USA.
Linda Hoeptner Poling is Associate Professor of Art Education at Kent State University, USA.
Rébecca Bourgault is Assistant Professor and Chair of Art Education at the Boston University College of Fine Arts, USA.
Marjorie Cohee Manifold is Professor of Arts Education at Indiana University, USA.