Creative Aging
Art Is Essential
Inspired by founder Duncan Phillips’s belief in the “joy-giving and life-enhancing” power of art, Creative Aging reflects The Phillips Collection’s commitment to art, wellness, and lifelong learning.
Creative Aging is designed for older adults living with memory loss. For more than 13 years, the Phillips has partnered with local organizations to create meaningful art experiences that foster connection through close looking, conversation, and artmaking. In recent years, our public program, Reframing Care, has expanded these experiences to care partners and a broader community.
Every Creative Aging session begins in the galleries, where participants share observations, explore emotions, and connect with works of art. These conversations continue through hands-on artmaking, resulting in the artworks featured in this exhibition. This exhibition celebrates curiosity, creativity, resilience, and joy. Together, these artworks remind us that art is essential.
ON VIEW
- Iona Wellness & Arts Center
- Iona Washington Home Center at Congress Heights
- Genevieve N. Johnson Senior Day Care Center with Arts for the Aging
- Congress Heights Senior Wellness Center
- Capitol Hill Village Memory Studio
- Reframing Care
The Phillips Collection is grateful to Paul and Terri Balaran and to the Dosal Family Foundation for their support of the museum’s Creative Aging initiatives, which include Reframing Care programs.
Iona Wellness & Arts Center
Every odd month, participants from Iona visit the Phillips galleries to engage with a work of art through guided conversation, close looking, and multisensory connection. In the following even month, Phillips educators travel to the Wellness & Arts Center to work with participants on original pieces created in response to that same artwork. The works on view in this exhibition reflect that ongoing collaboration, ranging from quilts exploring musicality through fabric to watercolors capturing the feeling of spring.
Genevieve N. Johnson Senior Day Care Center with Arts for the Aging
This series explored symbolism and storytelling through music and visual art, using collage and watercolor to bring those themes to life. Participants worked with an Arts for the Aging teaching artist across sessions at the center, inspired by works in The Phillips Collection, then visited the galleries to view Howard Hodgkin’s work in person and create original art directly in the galleries.
Congress Heights Senior Wellness Center
Participants began with a gallery tour to view Sam Gilliam’s work in person, then continued the experience with a visit to the center to create their own Gilliam-inspired canvases. Using loose canvas and acrylic paint, they folded, rolled, and pinned their work, letting the paint harden in place and give each canvas its form.
Iona Washington Home Center at Congress Heights
Every odd month, participants from Iona visit the Phillips galleries to engage with a work of art through guided conversation, close looking, and multisensory connection. In the following even month, Phillips educators travel to the Washington Home Center to work with participants on original pieces created in response to that same artwork. The works on view in this exhibition reflect that ongoing collaboration, and include acrylic and ink paintings as well as a quilt.
Reframing Care
Reframing Care is a monthly program for individuals living with dementia and their care partners, offering conversation, social connection, and creative art making in a supportive museum setting. Led by specially trained museum educators, each session centers on a different work of art and includes guided discussion, time to connect with others, and hands-on art making. Through arts engagement, participants and care partners reimagine their relationship to dementia in positive, hopeful, and practical ways. The works on view—including clay reliefs, watercolors, and ink paintings—reflect the creativity and connection fostered through this collaborative process.
Memory Studio at Capitol Hill Village
Hosted by Capitol Hill Village, Memory Studio is a grant-funded, inclusive arts program for individuals living with dementia and memory loss, and their care partners. Led by trained teaching artists and supported by volunteers offering holistic social connection, sessions blend creative storytelling, music, movement, and hands-on art making with time for reflection. Each workshop includes live music and a shared lunch to cultivate community. Memory Studio is grateful to The Phillips Collection for access to its collection, which inspires the workshops and offers opportunities to experience the art in the galleries.
