This summer intensive was one of the smartest, best organized classes I’ve ever taken.  The information was clearly delivered and with such warmth.  My fellow students, too, were amazing.  We had professional artists, nurses, one arts therapist and one hospital program director, all of us hailing from San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis, Virginia, Quebec, Puerto Rico, and Siberia.  Most of us were professional artists: singers, dancers, puppeteers, painters, theatre directors.  Many of my fellow students already worked bedside in hospitals.

In addition to taking classes on the contemporary practices of arts in medicine, the difference between arts in medicine and art therapy, the ways that the brain responds to creativity, the cultural underpinnings of arts in medicine, self-care for artists in medicine, and a slew of art classes, we also followed professional artists through the wards.  I tailed two professional writers, two professional artists, and a professional musician through cancer wards, pediatrics, and the ICU.

My first clinical, I followed a wonderful writer named Dthrough dim and solumn halls, with  my fellow student, a dancer-turned-pre-med student named M.  D pushes around a cart he calls “The Mobile Inspiration Station” through the silent halls, stopping to ask, “Do you have any patients who need art today” from each nurse not already engaged in inspiration.  He knocks on doors, “Would you like some art today?”  Though he is, professionally, a writer, his cart overflows not only with journals, but paints and markers and crayons, crossword puzzles and National Geographics, embroidery floss and clay.

Our first visit was with an older man and his wife, who gruffly replied he didn’t do art.  So we began talking with him and wilderness is his passion.  I inquire about the ways to handle alligators and snakes, and then he tells us this beautiful story about hunting in, of all the cold and high places for a Florida man to find himself, Colorado.  He’s shivering in a hole he’s dug in the snow, barely able to breathe 1000 feet above sea level, feeling that he must be crazy, and a fool for spending so much money on this, when his hearts desire clomps out of the woods.  An elk.  He shoots, and the elk, without reaction, nonchalantly wanders behind a boulder.  Clearly he’s come all this way, and missed.  He’s no sooner given up hope when the elk nonchalantly wanders back into view, and flops over.  Upon examination, the elk has a neat hole centered squarely in his chest.  For him, this was a spiritual experience, and he brooked no interruption in the telling of the tale, or change of subject.  This was a monologue he needed to perform, and it was honestly riveting.

Another patient we visited with, similarly turned down the first offer of art.  So we began talking, and this man’s passion was ballroom dancing.  Story after story of parties, leading perfect strangers swirling across the dance floor, jealous girlfriends, eager dance partners, and carefully studying every move Fred Astaire ever made, noticing how the great dancer mixed different styles of dance.

M whispers to me, “You’re going to dance with him.”

Dance is the art discipline I most fear, feel most awkward about.  So I whisper back, “No I’m not.  Can’t we write?  That’s in the realm of my expertise.”

M whispers back, “No, you’re going to dance with him.”

So I suggest to D that he bring out the slot drum (think a small, rectangular, wooden steel drum) from the mobile inspiration station.  D begins to play.  M and I begin to do a mirror exercise (one person moves, and the other person follows, eyes locked to each other the whole time).  This is a theatre exercise, so I’m still in my depth.  Then M whispers, “I’m going to lead you without touching you.”

“Okay I whisper” M raises his hand over my head, and because I’ve had two months of ballroom dancing in my life ever, I dutifully twirl beneath.

Then M turns to the man, “Would you like to dance with her?”

In our classes, they show us footage of dancers working with patients.  The patients sit up in bed, and move their arms in slow and graceful swirls with the dancer, along to Chopin, and Debussy.  So I approach the bed, ready to enact the same.

The patient, who I might remind you is very ill, leaps out of bed.  We push the little table aside and next thing I know I’m being whirled in 50 directions at work, his feet scissoring the air beneath me in patterns I can’t even begin to follow.  Twirling this way and that, I know a glass of water over onto his bed.  ‘No worries!” everyone assures me, and I continue to be lead along the dance of my lifetime.

Then, the man, satisfied, returns to bed.  We chat for a little while longer, and then leave.

I wrote a poem in the cafeteria, almost immediately after.  I ended the poem with:

It didn’t matter

I wasn’t Ginger Roberts

What mattered was

He was still Fred Astaire.

In the face of disease that steals from you everything you could ever do in your old life, removing your identity and placing you wrapped in tubes on a strange bed, it is good to have a moment that let’s you know you are still you.

Along these lines, I was really heartened when Gary Marschke, our new Development Director, sent me this Oregonian article.  In it, George Rede writes about town hall meetings the Nonprofit Association of Oregon organized, bringing together representatives of 80 nonprofits to petition together to have a voice in stage budget.  No demands, just a voice.  So often, when budgets get cut, we feel like we’re scrambling with each other to get what’s left.  As a theatre artist, I believe we’re so much stronger when we work together.  With three more meetings slated for around the state, I think it’s a lovely initiative, and one that bears supporting!

But first!  Coming up this month, our Acting {lab style} workshop will be held by our esteemed Artistic Director Katy Lijeholm.

Objective: To begin to acquaint actors with deep, detailed reading of non-professional writing.

Writers for Well Arts come with a variety of abilities, however all have a deep, passionate need to tell their     own unique stories.  This class will show you how to seek out the needs of the writer in the piece, and read closely for the tiny, important details that make the writing shine.  There will be warm up physical and vocal exercises.  Then each actor will be given their own unique piece from a Well Arts workshop.  These writings come from our workshops and performances with veterans, people in drug addiction recovery, people  living with multiple sclerosis, cancer, AIDS, children with diabetes and cancer, and elders.  The     facilitator will guide them through finding beats, some of which will be obvious and some of which are well “hidden”.  Then the facilitator will work with the actors to create strong visual and vocal choices to allow the audience to access the mind of the writer.

Our ongoing workshops are held free of charge, and are open to the community.  Please wear comfortable clothing and bring water.

The workshop will take place:

11 AM to 1 PM on Saturday January 15th
at
Augustana Lutheran Church
(upstairs)

2710 NE 14th St
Portland, OR 97212

PLEASE RSVP your attendance to Katy@wellarts.org

I look forward to meeting and working with more of you as this wonderful new year unfolds.  Be well!

Blessings
Caitlin Bargenquast

Hi Everyone.

It’s Caitlin Bargenquast over at the Well Arts office.  Some members of the community already know me as the assistant director of our last production The Best is Yet to Come, and to others I’m a fresh Well Arts face.

As we continue to serve our mission of exploring, developing and practicing creativity as a means to wellness, I have been honored to be a part of the board envisioning Well Arts’ next phases of growth, and expansion in the community.

I’ve been busy, as of late, working with the wealth of creative history Well Arts has compiled during our ten-year presence in the community.  I am wading through archives, catching up on all that I haven’t read, and am working towards assembling a  “Best of…” Well Arts production, as well as supporting our ongoing workshops with a library of work examples.

Putting these to immediate good use, I’m very excited to be facilitating this month’s Actors {lab style} Workshop:

Text in the Body

Well Arts Institute scripts are generated from a place of intimate dialogue with the mind/ body experience of illness and wellness; this offers us a powerful opportunity as performers to access the words through our bodies in order to embody and enliven the writer’s unique story for our audiences.

In this lab-style class the actor will work with a piece of archived WAI text.  We will explore a physical warm up, locating the text in the body, and sketching out a dynamic physical and vocal vocabulary for our characters.

These workshops are held free of charge, and are open to the community.  Please wear comfortable clothing and bring water.

The workshop will take place:

11 AM to 1 PM on Saturday November 20th

at

Augustana Lutheran Church

(upstairs)

2710 NE 14^th St

Portland, OR 97212

PLEASE RSVP your attendance to Caitlin@wellarts.org

Thank you and Be Well!

Bright Blessings,

Caitlin

For those of you unfamiliar with the smooth, slightly nasal warm voice of Michele Norris, she is a co-host of “All Things Considered” with Robert Siegel and Melissa Block.  I’ve listened to her on and off for years, but never knew she’d been wanting to write a book.  Monday afternoon I learned she was just setting out on her first book tour for a book she’s written about her father, “The Grace of Silence”.

Her father was a veteran of the Navy.  When he returned home from overseas at the close of World War II, he returned to a Birmingha, Alabama that was fearful and outraged by these black veterans who decided that the democracy they fought and died for overseas should be theirs as well at home.  The city was tense and violent.  It would prove to be the catalyst for de-segregating the military (an issue we seem to re-visit, again and again, with each new generation).  Though not participating in the marches, on a night out with his brother Woodrow, her father was nearly killed by a police officer.  The police officer pointed a gun at her father’s chest, Woodrow knocked the gun to the side and the bullet grazed her father’s thigh.  They were both arrested, and Michele’s father walked with a slight limp the rest of his life.

He never told her anything about it.  She learned about it from family members, long after his death.

He had decided not to embitter her, burden her with the story.  And Michele says she would have certainly been a different person, had she known.  But now, she deeply desires to understand what her father went through, and to understand his decision.  She pieces together what she can from family and from historical events.

Belvin Norris was a brave man, dignified, who Michele says spent, ” a lifetime trying to be a model minority.”  Often, we are fortunate enough, in Voices of Our Elders, to work with amazing, strong, dignified elders.  The decision of when and where and how to pass on their life’s stories is one that we work on every day of the session.  It’s so easy to keep what is luminescent, or troubling, about one’s life private.  It is so important for elders to know that we want their stories to not disappear with them once they traverse the veil to the great beyond.  We want to clutch those stories to ourselves, and understand both the big and the little why’s.  I greatly look forward to reading Michele’s book, and hope that too will  stick it in your stack to read on your bedside table!

How can you get involved?  You can sign up for a free class (open to all Elders over 65)!  Or, you could scribe!  We’re expecting up to 15 elders, and we need volunteer scribes!  You can audition for the performances (details for that tba, but call the office or email Katy at katy@wellarts.org and let us know you’re interested!)  Other opportunities for scribing and volunteering are in the works, so be sure to come back to the website from time to time and check out the new stuff!

The details for the audition are these:

Audition Dates: Wednesday September 8th & Sunday September 12th from 1-3pm

Audition Time Slots: Every 15 minutes

Audition Place: Augustana Lutheran Church, 2710 NE 14th Avenue, Portland Oregon 97212

Bring: Headshot and Resume.  This will be a cold read audition.
Call: 503.459.4500 during office hours to schedule an appointment, or email katy@wellarts.org

Compensation: $50

In addition to auditions, we are launching our new series of free monthly acting workshops, starting this month!  We think this’ll be a great way to professionally support the awesome actors who bring their considerable expertise and skill to tell stories all over Portland.  And it’s a great way for us to meet awesome actors, too!  We’ll be rotating teachers, so as to provide introductions to a broad array of approaches to acting.  We’ll be holding our workshops on the third Saturdays of every month from 9am-11am…well away from most rehearsal and performance times!

The details for our September Acting Workshop are these:

Workshop Title: Accessing Illness

Workshop Teacher: Katy Liljeholm

Workshop Date: September 18th

Workshop Time: 9am-11am

Workshop Place: Augustana Lutheran Church 2710 NE 14th Avenue, 97212

Busline: #8 stops right out front

Navigating the Building:  The church is composed of 2 big buildings, with a small glass walkway connecting them, accessible from both 14th Ave and 15th Ave.

Next Month: Board Member Caitlin Bargenquast will be leading our October 16th workshop!

It’s nice to be surrounded by such talented artists.  Thank you, everyone, for all you do (writers, actors, supporters, and all)!

Don’t Quit Being So Creative!

Katy Liljeholm

Artistic Director

I know internships have gotten some bad press lately for being slave-labor kinds of positions.  I can’t really do that to another human being, so there’s been a little duck-row-making going on.  (Get it, duck-row-making?  Putting all of your ducks in a row?)  I’m arranging for some professional development for our intern to help make the work worth their while.  Playwright Hunt Holman has graciously agreed to give a little writing tutorial!  He’s one of my favourite playwrights in town!  His writing is tight, brilliantly worded, and bizarrely hilarious (which we could take more advantage of the latter in grant writing…more creatives might be willing to do it!)  I’m working on roping in/begging a few other friends to give tutorials to our intern!  There are some excellent, free professional development workshops around town, so I’m signed up for that, and hopeful to bring our intern in tow!  Brian Wagner from the Oregon Arts Commission invited us to submit a proposal for the Arts Build Communities (ABC) grants, due October 1st.  He’s giving our grant draft a good look over, and we’re invited to watch the Selection Committee evaluate our proposal, so that’ll be interesting, too!  We’ve got our information together in one place (almost) and a calendar set up for the year so we know which grant we’re doing when.  All  told, we’ve got a great home here for an intern!

Now we just have to find a great intern!  If you know of any, send them our way!

And so here’s what I’ve been doing.  Well Arts is continuing the Voices Of Our Elders program at Beaverton History Center.  We’re partnering with Beaverton High School, and students from the leadership class will be our newest and youngest scribes.  The workshops begin September 18th, from 1-2:30, and end November 6th, with a performance at Beaverton History Center on December 4th!  Angela Bolanos and Krista Harmon are our newest office volunteers.  Caitlin Bargenquast is organizing and archiving all our past writings into a new library, as well as gathering examples of creative-nonfiction, poetry, and other writings to serve as examples in the workshops!  (Have a favourite?  Let us know what it is by posting a comment!)  We’re getting ready to advertise a grant-writing intern position (and now you know about it early)!  We’re submitting a grant to the Oregon Arts Commission, in partnership with Elders in Action and former Oregon Poet Laureate Lawson Inada, and possibly Geezer Gallery and downtown Loaves and Fishes, too.  We’re also going to partner with Geezer Gallery for workshops (I’m meeting with their illustrious leader, Amy Henderson, this Friday).  We’re in conversation with Hollywood Senior Center to lead some workshops there as well!  It looks like we’re going to perform at the MS Society’s next fundraiser!  And we will be remounting The Best Is Yet To Come at Augustana Lutheran Church, probably in November!

I’m also having lunch with everyone I can think of who can help me learn how to manage a non-profit.  If you are such a person, I will give you free food if, in return, you allow me to pepper you with questions!

Who knew so much could happen in a few short weeks?

Grand Works Northwest Art Festival May 22

Celebrating Creativity in Aging

May 22 | 2pm-4:30pm

 Well Arts is proud to be a presenter at Grand Works Northwest. This is an art festival celebrating creativity and aging, featuring art and performances by age 60 and better.

Well Arts will be conducting creative writing workshops and performing works from our 2009 Voices of Our Elders writing workshops from 2pm – 4:30pm in the tent.

Located next to the Portland Art Museum: The Mark Building 1119 SW Park Avenue