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Senior citizens show talent as budding artists
Artists at Ashley Circle
Video
Briarfield at Ashley Circle has its own Picasso, Rembrandt and Renoir. A wall outside of the art room, dubbed Picasso’s Corner, displays much of the aspiring artists’ acrylic creations. “I think I get more out of it than they do,” Gray said.
Picasso's Corner
Gallery
Residents of Ashley Circle at Briarfield in Austintown paint with instruction from Suzanne Gray. Now they have a little gallery, called Picasso’s Corner, at the facility, to display their work.
By Denise Dick
austintown
Briarfield at Ashley Circle has its own Picasso, Rembrandt and Renoir.
Ruth Cooper and Verna Ruby are charter members of the painting class at the nursing home and rehabilitation facility.
“I painted an island scene,” said Cooper, 98. “I enjoy it very much.”
Cooper, who is legally blind with macular degeneration, hadn’t painted before the class.
“I’ve done better than I thought I could,” she said.
Ruby, 80, also enjoys the weekly class led by art instructors Suzanne Bort Gray of Boardman and Trish Blackman of Hudson.
“I enjoy it,” she said.
The instructors assembled some of the residents’ work into a 2010 calendar.
Ruby’s calendar contribution depicts a blue bird.
“I have it hanging in my room,” she said. “It has the blue bird on it today too.” Her painting adorns the month of April.
A wall outside of the art room, dubbed Picasso’s Corner, displays much of the aspiring artists’ acrylic creations.
“I think I get more out of it than they do,” Gray said.
She points out each work, explaining how one artist likes to work with bright colors, and another chooses animals to paint.
“They all pick what they want to paint,” Gray said. “That’s the beauty of it.”
Trina Whetstone, activities director at the facility, said the residents enjoy the weekly classes.
“It gives them a sense of accomplishment,” Whetstone said. “They look forward to it every week.”
Simmie Barrows, 87, is well-represented in Picasso’s Corner from landscapes to animals to flowers.
“I painted when I was a child in school, but that was probably in the ’40s,” Barrows said.
She enjoys the beauty of the work.
“I like how it connects and flows and all comes together,” Barrows said.
Jean Boesch, 93, huddled over her latest work of a blue hummingbird.
“My daughter wanted me to do it,” she said of the creation. “She’s loves hummingbirds. She has so many hummingbird feeders around her house and her property.”
The weekly classes mark her first venture into artwork.
“I never knew I liked it until I started coming down here,” Boesch said. “I didn’t know that I could do it.”
It was a new experience for Mary Meese, 87, too.
“I never painted before,” she said. “We didn’t have the money for paints when I was in school.”
Her most recent piece is of a brown and white dog, but she’s completed landscapes and other animals before.
“I like it very much,” Meese said.
Helen Bailey, also 87, usually chooses landscapes for her art but picked a mother and baby panda bear this time.
“I wanted to try animals,” Bailey said.
One of her works so impressed another resident’s family member that the man bought it.
“It felt good,” Bailey said of the sale.