For Love and Art

In "Celebrating the Art Experience," trained FL&A volunteers visit senior communities and showcase a particular collection on the big-screen television while actively engaging audience members to share their experience (e.g., express their thoughts and feelings) while viewing. All points of view are considered, validated, and appreciated. Through sharing of experiences, fear, loneliness, and boredom transform into Beauty, Joy, and Magic of Life for each participant. The context here is not to educate, but to uplift the quality of life psychosocially, cognitively, spiritually, and physically. Our Virtual Museum ArtBooks contain nearly 2,000 digitized artworks compartmentalized by each museum. After being custom dedicated to donor specifications, these digital ArtBooks are endowed to hospices and used by volunteers bedside. Given that one's experience, while viewing art is comprised of 20% of what's actually there and 80% of one's creative and fertile imagination, people tend to share matters in their lives that are very important to them. This level of intimacy and trust between caregivers and those they serve is a necessary prerequisite for inducing meaningful end-of-life conversations. It supplants any fear of dying with gratitude for having lived a wonderful life.