Creative Aging Program Reception

My first experience teaching clay hand-building to adults with special needs (blindness, early stages of dementia, hemiplegia, and MS) was so rewarding that it helped me see the direction I wanted to go as an art instructor. The students' drivers were also allowed to participate in the class. In other words, people from different age groups and abilities jumbled in the class and had fun together, dirtying hands in mud. At the completion reception, the class participants' pieces were showcased. Better yet, they had fun, using them drinking and eating out of the functional-ware they had created.

The students' positive reactions to this first endeavor are now encouraging me to further my teaching skills to guide people like them. Immense thanks to the SD Arts Council and the Rapid City Arts Council for their generous support.