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Courses in painting or writing or drama are easy to find. However, here too distinct advantages arise from searching out a program specifically for older people. By aligning yourself with an older artists’ group, you become a valued commodity. What your group does may be more in demand than if you joined an age-integrated group. If you want to translate what you learn into a second vocation – to exhibit, publish, or perform your work – unexpected doors can open when you capitalize on your creativity and your age.

For instance, at the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged, a philanthropic organization serving older people in the New York area, drama specialists Howard Phlanzer and Susan Miller formed an older adults’ theater ensemble by recruiting members from the organization’s network of affiliated senior citizens’ groups. Some members who passed the audition were in their late eighties. Many had had to abandon a lifelong interest in drama during their working careers. With the help of a historian from Columbia University, the group members wrote a theater piece about their personal experiences – what it was like to be children of immigrants growing up in New York at the turn of the century. Their play aroused the interest of people at the Jewish Museum of the City of New York, and they staged it there to high praise.

Some of the people in this group had attended drama classes at area universities but found they did not offer enough chance to meet people or to perform. Being labeled older gives this group and the many other artistic groups specifically for people over sixty, special opportunities for public access.

Programs to help, encourage and train older artists dot the country. To find out what is offered in your community, call or write the state arts council in your state. State arts councils have information about all arts activities including those specifically for people over sixty. And that marvelous general resource – your local office for the aging – should be able to offer you information in this area too.

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GENERAL HEALTH