Care Community stories

Creating art as an expression of our lives

1st June 2020 | 3 mins

Art Therapy Bankstown

Creative Legacy Artist and Coordinator, Grace Faint-Ludemann is facilitating a beautiful lifestyle activity at Bankstown Terrace Care Community over the next month. Residents from throughout our home attended five, weekly, two-hour art-making sessions.

The sessions introduced the residents to a variety of art forms such as water painting, sketching, charcoal drawing, and clay modelling. During the sessions, participants learned through interactive workshops, experimentation with materials, and the creation of their own artworks. These artworks will be ‘legacy pieces which are expressions of the residents’ lives and identities, artifacts to be shared with family and friends.

Using the format of the award-winning Creative Legacy Program run in Liverpool and Camden Hospital Palliative Care, participants reflected on their lives and had an active hand in telling and sharing their stories through art.

At the conclusion of Session Three, all our residents had the opportunity to record the stories behind their artworks in an Oral History. Grace facilitated a reflective conversation about their life, values, and relationships, using their artwork as a stimulus.

The Bankstown art gallery sits on level 3 around their fireplace wall and, once restricted access is over, we look forward to inviting guests in, to view the beautiful works of art.

Stories from across our Care Communities