Star Tribune: How ArtSage Programs Inspire the Elderly to Create

ArtSage, a nonprofit which trains artists to teach older people and helps match them with senior organizations, is featured in a Star Tribune article exploring the benefits that the arts bring to aging.

ArtSage, a nonprofit which trains artists to teach older people and helps match them with senior organizations, is featured in a Star Tribune article exploring the benefits that the arts bring to aging.

ArtSage, which is partnering with Ecumen on arts programming, is dedicated to helping older people stay active, engaged and social through activities such as dancing, storytelling and making music.   

Star Tribune reporter Katy Read covered ArtSage’s 2015 Midwest Arts and Aging Conference and Showcase and interviewed participants about their work. 

“We already have Bingo. We already have Joe the accordion player who comes in once a month,” Tammy Hauser told Read. “We’re trying to get [artists] to see older adults as creative beings, and not just passive participants. What we believe and know from science and anecdotal evidence is when people make art, when they’re creating their own music, when they’re writing their own stories, when they’re singing their own songs, it’s far more beneficial for them.”