Pictures from top:

Current Iona Senior Services artist-in-residence Melanie Grishman (http://www.iona.org);

Liz Lerman Dance Exchange

http://www.danceexchange.org/

Francesca and Rob's house;

Roy Litchenstein sculpture outside Hirshhorn Museum.

Tuesday 1^st June (Norwich – Amsterdam - Washington DC / Capitol Hill):

Weather – hot and humid

After arriving back in Norwich from Dublin on Sunday, I spent Monday preparing to leave the country again. As the London airports are all such a pain to get to and often so unpleasant to be in I flew with KLM from Norwich to Schipol and then from Schipol to Washington DC. After setting off from our house at 8am, I landed in DC at 5pm local time (10pm UK time). I am staying with a couple called Francesca and Rob who have a great house in the Capitol Hill district of DC. I arrived at the house at about 7.30pm local time (12.30 UK time) and almost immediately went out again for dinner. Washington DC is becoming very hot and humid as the summer months proceed.

The Capitol Hill district is located South-East of the city, about one mile from The Capitol Building. Pennsylvania Avenue runs past the nearest Metro station (Eastern Market). The prevailing architectural style in Capitol Hill is for terraces of three and four storey town houses, sometimes with porches or verandas and sometimes with towers. According to Francesca this style of building originates from about 80 or 90 years ago. Fransceca’s house was built in exactly the same style as the local vernacular but only four years ago. The house has excellent amenities and facilities and Rob and Francesca are brilliant hosts. Before I went to bed, I had already organised my routes for several of my meetings during the week - with Francesca’s help.

Wednesday 2^nd June (Washington DC / National Center for Creative Aging):

Weather hot and humid

My first meeting was not scheduled until midday so I spent the morning getting over jet-lag (I don’t suffer from it particularly) and orientating myself to DC.

At Midday, I took the Metro up to Tenleytown to meet Gay Hanna, Executive Director of the National Center for Creative Aging, (NCCA). The NCCA is a ‘not-for-profit’ membership network and exists to support the development of the creativity and ageing agenda at a national level across USA. The organisation has six key work areas:

1. To evaluate arts and aging programs to identify and promote best practices.

2. To distil the lessons of model programs in order to create technical assistance materials and training programs for others to use.

3. To support the replication of best practice models through existing or new arts and aging programs and coalitions throughout the country.

4. To serve as a clearinghouse for the exchange of information and resources, such as national conferences and national e newsletter.

5. To create and maintain a database of such programs as a resource to others.

6. To support research and policy toward developing the field.

We discussed current and future work programmes and projects including the fact that NCCA are in the process of working with George Washington University to develop a person-centered care and creativity training centre for medical staff. NCCA are hoping also to develop an international arts and older people conference next year. I have ensured that Gay has the contact details for the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and for Baring Foundation as she mentioned wishing to invite the WCMT arts and older people Fellows to the conference.

http://www.creativeaging.org/

In the early evening, having previously returned from my meeting and written up my notes, I travelled back into DC to go to the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and National Museum of American Art both of which stay open to 7pm. I saw an interesting exhibition of portraiture, including one artist who had given everyone in their hometown the opportunity to have their portrait painted, plus a very interesting exhibition which recounted the development of Christo’s ‘Running Fence’ project in California during the 1970s.

http://americanart.si.edu/

Thursday 3^rd June (Washington DC / Liz Lerman Dance Exchange / National Endowment For the Arts):

Weather hot and humid

In the morning, I took the Metro over to Takoma Park to meet the team at Liz Lerman Dance Exchange (LLDE). LLDE are one of the world leaders in intergenerational dance projects and have a 30 year plus history in working creatively with local communities to develop creative dance projects. I spent the morning with the organisation and had a series of very in-depth and wide-ranging conversations with management, staff and dancers. I also saw an example of their work – ‘Wind Studies’ a child-focussed performance piece discussing the importance of the wind. Rather than recount in-depth the conversations which took place during my meetings with LLDE, I will refer to the key points within my final report:

http://www.danceexchange.org/whoweare.html

In the afternoon, I went over to visit the AccessAbility team at National Endowment for the Arts (equivalent to The Arts Council in UK). The National Endowment for the Arts’ Office for AccessAbility is the advocacy-technical assistance arm of the Arts Endowment to make the arts accessible for people with disabilities, older adults, veterans, and people living in institutions. The Office works in a myriad of ways to accomplish its goals, such as:

• Providing technical assistance to individuals and organizations in the following areas: to open existing programs and make the arts fully accessible to people with disabilities, older adults, and people living in institutions; and to comply with the Endowment's Section 504 Regulations and the Americans with Disabilities Act;
• Initiating cooperative projects with other federal agencies and nonprofit groups to better educate professionals serving older and disabled people concerning access issues and the value and benefits of arts programming;
• Encouraging and assisting more support for addressing the needs of older and disabled Americans through the Endowment's divisions and through state and national groups concerned with the arts and with underserved populations;
• Assisting applicants and grantees with project development that involve the targeted groups; and
• Organizing/convening panels, seminars, and workshops for Endowment staff, its grantees, as well as other federal agencies

I met with the Director Paula Terry and we spent some time discussing the work of the AccessAbility team including ‘Universal Design’. Paula very kindly has arranged for the NEA book on ‘Universal Design’ to be sent back to UK for me.

In the evening, I spent time walking up to the Capitol Building and back.

Friday 4^th June (Washington DC / Iona Senior Services):

Weather hot and humid

I went to visit Iona Senior Services who are based in Tenleytown (NCCA are in fact based within their building). Iona provide a range of services to older people living in DC, most notably day care services. I was given a tour of the day centre, gallery and other facilities within the centre and met Director of Development Meg Artley and Gallery Coordinator Patricia Dubroof as well as Social Worker Bill Amt.

The philosophy at Iona has always been to integrate creativity and creative opportunities into their service delivery at all levels. Two practical examples of how this has manifested itself are that the day centre currently includes an art therapy unit with an art therapist employed on site and the fact that Iona also run artist-in-residence programmes. As a consequence, not only is the development of creativity seen as integral to the development of the ‘person-centred’ care programmes but that also, the whole building is treated as a gallery with art and craft exhibited on all of the walls and in all of the display units. http://www.iona.org/ I will explore the key highlights in policy, funding, care philosophy and service delivery in more detail within my report to WCMT.