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ART, UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
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Sally Holmes, Traditional-
Goddard House resident
with MFA docent Griselda White
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"To improve the golden “T moment of opportunity and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.” – Samuel Johnson
Goddard House in Brookline has embraced the philosophy that learning occurs throughout life. Residents of Olmsted Place, the memory impairment program at Goddard House, have the joyful opportunity of visiting the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, “Access to Art” program. These privately guided tours take participants with physical or cognitive needs to a different exhibit each month.
As small groups are led through contained and quiet gallery spaces, museum docents focus on the relationship of the participant to the artwork. Valarie Burrows, Accessibility Coordinator, states: “Wherever participants are…that is where we go.”
Recently, within the quiet, seated confines of the Ancient Indian art exhibit, a few visitors from Goddard House became restless. Sensing their need to move on, Valarie escorted the group to another area of the museum to view a new print collection of Japanese sumo wrestlers. Participants marveled at the intense colors in the ancient prints. A sumo wrestling video was also part of the exhibit and made it difficult to wrap up the tour: viewers were mesmerized by the slow and synchronous movements of the wrestlers!
Tour guides, ranging in age from twenty to ninety, from all walks of life, are trained to work with people who are memory impaired. Participants’ questions and answers are never characterized as right or wrong. All comments are indicators of active and direct engagement with the art form.
During the recent tour of 19th century Italian Renaissance art, one Olmsted Place resident, Barbara, looked at a bust of a voluptuous Italian goddess and remarked: “I bet she has fat legs!” After much laughter, the group discussed the fact that nineteenth century Italians associated a plump body with love, comfort, fertility, and desirability. Goddard House residents became partners in the discovery of their uniquely personal relationship to these masterpieces.
Viewing great works of art in a group serves to stimulate emotional and empathetic connections amongst participants and their guides. Archetypal images, such as mother and infant or lovers engaged in an embrace, hold universal meanings which translate into deeply felt personal life stories.
Valarie Burrows sums it up, “We human beings are the only animals that make images. You encounter many stories, your own included, by engaging with art. That’s why it’s important.”
Real learning gets to the heart of what it means to be human. Through learning we re-create ourselves. Through learning we become able to do something we never were able to do. Through learning we reperceive the world and our relationship to it. Through learning we extend our capacity to create, to be part of the generative process of life. There is within each of us a deep hunger for this type of learning. - Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline
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