ART FOR LIFE connects the arts to good health

Arts professionals across the country are recognizing the connections between health and wellness and engagement with the arts. An active engagement in the arts is part of a healthy lifestyle and builds both healthy individuals and healthy communities. Over the past year and a half, one of the major projects of the South Dakota Arts Council (SDAC) Folk & Traditional Arts Program has been establishing a new program called Art for Life in South Dakota.

Art for Life, developed by North Dakota Council on the Arts folklorist Troyd Geist, works to bring both fine and traditional arts into elder care facilities across the state. The program acknowledges countless medical studies showing that for elders in residential care facilities, intensive engagement in art can work to eliminate the “three plagues” of loneliness, boredom and helplessness, creating a better standard of living for our elders.

Residents of Edgewood examining a photograph, upon which they are basing their collaborative story.

Art for Life consists of a partnership between SDAC, a local arts council and a local elder care facility. The three organizations work together to bring quality, interactive arts opportunities into the local care facility. While engaging with both fine arts and traditional arts is an important component of Art for Life, it is important to make sure local, communitybased traditional artists are being involved. These artists are likely to have existing social and familial connections to the elders, and they may share a culture or hold other things in common with the seniors. This familiarity inspires the confidence necessary to encourage participation by seniors.

Utilizing the toolkit created by NDCA, we have implemented a pilot Art for Life program in Sisseton, partnering with the Sisseton Arts Council and the Edgewood care facility. The first AFL activity, held in May, was called timeslips, a collaborative storytelling activity based on images of regional, vernacular, cultural themes—i.e., rodeos, German-Russian weather forecasting traditions and water dowsing. The activity engaged elders in creative storytelling, relieving them of the pressure to remember something specific, but drawing on shared folklife and cultural experiences. Several more Art for Life programs have followed, including a three-part ceramic bowl making activity, a multi-media wallpaper quilting activity, traditional Dakota dancing with Tiospa Zina Tribal School’s Traditional Culture Class and more. Additional Art for Life activities are planned for the coming year.

Top left photo and above, Edgewood residents work on a wallpaper quilting project organized by the Sisseton Arts Council.

Not only does Art for Life improve the lives of our elders in care facilities, it also provides paid teaching opportunities for local fine and traditional artists. Further, there is opportunity to partner with local schools to allow our students to engage in the arts alongside their elders. The hope is that Art for Life enhances the standard of living for the entire community.