The Arkansas Arts Center is normally closed to the public on Mondays. But on this Monday, the third Monday of the month, the lights come on and the doors open.
Two by two, a few guests arrive. They exchange warm welcomes. They are here for 90 minutes of joy.
Joy is a word that invites skepticism, so let's say they are here for a gallery tour. The tour is a monthly Arts Center offering called Art Together.
Art Together tours are sculpted for the benefit of caregivers and their loved ones who have dementia -- it doesn't have to be Alzheimer's disease; their diagnosis can place them anywhere along the dementia spectrum. But those are facts that you have to know before you arrive: They
aren't discussed on tour. Some in attendance may not be fully aware they have dementia, and those who care for them see no benefit in confronting them with it.
The tour's mission is not a secret, per se, but arrangements have been made for these art patrons to leave their troubles at the door.
"Everyone just thinks it's an art tour, and they get this special experience," says Louise Palermo, director of education programs at the Arts Center. "Everyone joins in and participates, and we are careful to include everyone in our discussions."
The casual, easy feel of the tour belies the forethought that goes into it.
"It's modeled after Meet Me at MoMA, and that's a very well-funded, very well-researched program from MoMA in New York," says Palermo. "They generously put all of their research and all of their training materials on their website. Therefore it became accessible to museums all across the country, and there are many, many museums that have programs like this."
The tour covers just three or four pieces of artwork and focuses on factors that don't require memory but that do encourage thought and interaction.
"When we get older, we all forget a little bit, right? But the great thing is that even when your ability to remember is compromised, your ability to imagine is not compromised," Palermo says. "It stays with you your whole life, so we tap into that.
"As long as we focus on what you can see, what is right in front of you, as long as we work right from the piece of art and we ask people to imagine or 'tell us what you see,' then we are setting them up to be very successful."
WHAT CAN BE SEEN
At the beginning of April's tour, lightweight folding stools are passed around, and 10 people walk into the "30 Americans" exhibit, a collection of contemporary American art. They open their stools and settle in front of a gigantic portrait by Kehinde Wiley.
"Let's look at the portrait and talk about it," says Paula Furlough, a museum docent who drove to Little Rock from her home in Monticello to lead the tour. "I would like for us to just for a minute or two sit in silence. Just look at the painting. Let your eyes examine it."
Eventually, someone in the group volunteers that the background, full of ornate ropes, looks like a tapestry or a rug, as if it might have a texture beyond brush strokes.
The ropes in the painting's background swirl to the forefront and cover part of the horse's tail, someone else points out.
Others note that the man in the painting carries a jousting stick and sword, items that suggest he's living in a bygone era, but he's also wearing athletic pants and Nike sneakers and carrying a cellphone.
The conversation touches on the symbolism of all these things, on what it might mean that the horse is rearing up and what the man might be doing. Then the conversation takes in the heavy, gilded frame and the significance of the eggs that unite its corners.
Furlough explains that Wiley painted this work, Equestrian Portrait of the Count Duke Olivares, in 2005, and that it was his interpretation of another work, made by Diego Velazquez in the 1600s. Wiley toured museums in Europe and found only white men featured in portraits, so he decided to re-create them depicting brown men, finding subjects on the streets of New York and asking them to sit for him.
Tour members adjust their stools to face a triptych on the wall to the left, another work by Wiley titled Triple Portrait of Charles I, which is based on a historic triptych by Sir Anthony Van Dyck. The group's process starts over, with Furlough asking what time period they think these paintings suggest. The man in the portraits is wearing a hoodie with a popular insignia.
"All these things go into our identity, our background, the time we live in," she prompts.
Someone suggests there might be some symbolism in the artist's decision to bring the aged-looking, curled greenery and orange blossoms from the background into the front, and push the contemporary sitter into the background.
"He's very serious," says a patron.
Another wonders what the subjects in Wiley's portraits would say now about having their faces on the walls of museums all over the country.
And then the time comes to move on to the third work, Barkley L. Hendricks' Noir (1978).
"He's a cool dude," a patron observes of the man in a pinstriped leisure suit and yellow shoes who fills the tall canvas in front of her.
The patrons talk about stereotypes the artist probably set out to avoid but which stand out for observers almost 40 years removed from the painting's creation -- the Zodiac pendant, the cigarette dangling from the subject's hand, the long, pointed pinkie nail and the clothes oh-so-indicative of the 1970s.
NO FAILURES
At the end of the tour, Furlough thanks each person by name for coming and for talking about art.
"Didn't they respond well?" she beams after the guests depart. "They were right on target. It really does warm my heart."
The conversations, far from simplistic, were stimulating but included no quiz questions, nothing that required education or art experience.
Palermo strives to avoid reminding her tour groups of what might not be remembered.
"You never ask, 'Hey, remember when you were a kid ...?' Never," she says. "You say -- if you're standing in front of a landscape -- 'Imagine you're standing in this field, looking at this ... what kind of sound do you think you would hear?'"
Data gathered by the Museum of Modern Art in New York found no long-lasting benefit for dementia patients who attend tours such as Meet Me at MoMA or Art Together.
"It might disappear the moment they get home," says Palermo. But "this program is 90 minutes where no one is defined by anything other than the work of art. It is completely 'in the moment.'"
EQUALS
Robert Wright has escorted his wife, Joan, a former public school art teacher who taught him a great deal about art, to almost every monthly tour since the program's inception in August 2014.
"It's so great to see her, and the other folks who are there, light up and act normal and participate and come up with observations," he says. "Some people need the help of other people, but that's the thing about it, we're all on an equal footing."
Wright appreciates that during the tours, his wife feels again that her contributions matter.
"She's a former art teacher and she's brilliant and, of course, her opinions do matter, but sometimes you get to a certain point in your life where you have certain challenges and you feel invisible," says Palermo. "People might discount what you say or might just not ask."
Elise Siegler, executive director of Alzheimer's Arkansas programs and services, says the group works in partnership with the Arts Center to get the word out about Art Together and is applying for a grant that would allow for the offering of an art therapy program.
Some research has found that art therapy can stimulate the imagination of dementia patients, she says, as well as offer an avenue for expression. Self-expression is important because people with dementia often have trouble communicating.
Creating art also helps people retain or regain motor skills.
Before coming to the Arts Center in 2008, Palermo worked at J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, overseeing 500 docents. One of those docents was blind and gave a tour, "The Getty You Don't See," that focused on architecture. Another docent who was deaf worked in the museum's storytelling program.
"That's really what museum education is all about," she says. "It's using works of art as an entry point for a million different things. I was lucky to have this great training. We're always looking for ways to use art as an entry point for great experiences no matter who's in front of you."
Tour participants are given laminated copies of the works they saw to take home.
"It is just for a point of conversation. It is to maybe call on good feelings -- it is absolutely not about looking at it and remembering anything," Palermo says. "It's just about being in the moment with a work of art. When you get to take it home, you can look at it and imagine you're in it or just enjoy it."
Making 3-D copies of sculptures for participants to touch or take home would allow the engagement of another sense and could enrich the overall experience, and that's an idea she's exploring.
For Robert Wright, the tours are simply bright spots.
"She doesn't talk much about it afterward," he says of his wife. "She just has such a darn good time when she's there. That's what I love about it."
Reservations for Art Together tours are available by calling (501) 372-4000.
ActiveStyle on 05/04/2015