Silverwood Park - Christa and Chelsea - residency - 1.75 hours

This week I was with Silverwood at their outreach program with the Legacy of St. Anthony, a residence for seniors. They have been going to Legacy for about five years now, once a month with a different talk and arts project.

This month was focused on maple syrup. The accompanying craft was a tunnel book watercolour project. As always with Legacy, we helped get everyone situated. We begin by introducing ourselves, the nature topic and the craft. As the watercolour background for the tunnel books need time to dry, we painted those first. We taped down the corners so no one had to hold the paper and paint and many of the seniors have arthritis or similar things that make it difficult to use their hands. We showed how to do a sunrise or sunset which involved talking about warm and cool colours.

Our group was about seven, with four at the front and three at the back. We had examples of the finished product set up at both ends of the table. I stationed myself at the back, with the group of three. I again wound up working mostly one on one which I really enjoy with seniors. As the assistant in the room, it’s easy to take on that role. I did the craft alongside the group at the back. We talked about the warm colours needed to make a sunrise. One lady I worked with kept asking me to just tell her what colours to use. I hesitated to direct someones art like that so I would instead ask what she thought would be best, what colour does she see i the sunrise, offered a few shades and let her pick.

While we let our backgrounds dry, we talked about maple syrup. Chelsea is a naturalist from Silverwood and an MCAD alum. She talked about the trees that produce syrup, how to get it, the process from tapping to bottling and the difference between processed fake syrup and natural syrup from the park. We talked about what we liked to put syrup on, the different techniques of tapping trees, how to keep squirrels from getting the syrup. After our discussion, everyone got to sample three different syrups, including one from the park. We then turned back to our craft. As Chelsea was finishing talking, Christa and I made sure there were enough folded end pieces for everyone. We folded some more and passed them out along with glue sticks.

We added trees with buckets hanging on taps to collect the syrup to the frames going on the tunnel book. The lady I helped asked me to do the gluing and she placed her chosen tree. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the final product. Another participant told me that all of the crafts she makes at the program get added to her cabin up north.

We cleaned up and were able to pass out the fired and finished clay birds from last month. It was really great getting to see the final product from that project. I really love coming to Legacy and can’t wait for next months program.

Next up is a special program with Silverwood - it only happens every equinox. Stay tuned...