Tour at the Denver Art Museum, a walk in a park and out to lunch

Art Therapy is so fascinating. Studying pieces of art with a wonderful guide, like we did today, gets each of us to focus, relax,  contemplate, and share our observations. In the large piece made out of recyclable wine bottles, our guide asked us  – if we could, would we want to take it home? Jennifer said, “yes, but it looks like a blanket to me, and I don’t have a bed big enough for it. ” “Ah”, said J, “you just want a bigger bed”!   Lots of friendly banter as thoughts were verbalized.   In another art piece everyone’s first impression was along the lines of ick! too violent, don’t like it, but as they paused and looked more closely, that man wasn’t a devil,  he was actually saving people, and wait, who was he saving? and what were they all looking at in the distance? and where are they?…

We get such a kick out of J in particular, because when she started with us quite a while ago, she entered art museums with disinterest, which eventually grew to curiosity, and now on days like today she’s really quite engaged and enjoying herself. She still sees things through a practical lense, “that doesn’t make sense”, but  she listens, and now gives more time and attention to what we’re learning. She’s much more appreciative.  And D, we’ve noticed, has a good eye for art, he makes interesting observations.

This was a cool project! At one point the artwork we saw, entitled “utopia”,  instigated a discussion about what utopia ould means to each of us. Just about everybody could put words to their thoughts about this, and unknown to us, an artist was drawing pictures of what we said! So most of us were sent home from the Denver Art Museum with a card, on the back of which is an illustration of what we said. For example, A said utopia for her would be “a room full of piano players”, and D said, “silver linings and clouds”; some beautiful and imaginative ideas!

I wasn’t on the tour with the group today, but later on Jennifer told me: there was a lot of participation and input from our group, and the tour guides were “fantastic”. So thank you to the Denver Art Museum, and our guides Jeri, Chuck and the artist Joan.

After morning snacks today, the group went for about a 1/2 hour walk in O’Kane Park, then off to lunch, then to  our art museum tour.

Conversations included A – what a funny little story Bruce told me. She jumped in the car in the morning all enthusiastic. Bruce complimented her on her sweet smelling perfume. When Angie couldn’t recall the name of it Bruce asked, “Bengay?” and she busted up laughing. Then she said, “I love starting the day with laughter.”

I really like how Bruce described J, he said, “she smiled a lot today”, and how Jennifer described L, “he’s quiet, he observes, he really enjoyed our walk, he listens carefully, and every once in a while he’s silly! Like hiding his face when a loud car zoomed past us, peeking out behind his arms at me, making me giggle”

In the park the subject of birds came up and J told the group how she can “call the chick-a-dees in” to feed them. She spoke so fondly of  birds – and, as always – the flowers they saw.

D talked about his travels, France, Italy and Maui, where he rode a bike to a crater to see the sunrise!?

Thanks again to our volunteer tour guides at the museum, they are exceptionally good to us.