Hope Thrives: Creative Aging Symposium 2025 Recap
Senior Director Jessica McCracken shares her AI storytelling drawing with the group.
For eight years, our Creative Engagement team has been hosting the Creative Aging Symposium (CAS) virtually with a variety of guest speakers, teachers, and thought-leaders to explore where aging meets creativity. This year we wanted to celebrate the dynamic teachers and participants in our own programs by featuring them in the symposium, so we invited folks from Ruth’s Table, Front Porch Gallery, and Creative Spark to share with us the ways they create connection, meaning, and hope. We had 275 virtual attendees including senior living communities, senior artists, teaching artists, caregivers and elder care professionals!
Happy participants at Ruth’s Table’s Gen Blend poetry exchange
From Ruth’s Table’s intergenerational poetry group Gen Blend, we had participants read their poetry. Then we participated in a live drawing event using AI storytelling. From Front Porch Gallery, we experienced a moment of slow looking at an original art piece where participants modeled mindful observation and how themes emerge when we slow down and allow art to speak to us. As the Creative Spark Program Manager, I wanted to bring my special skills to the table and collaborate with one of our Sparklers which is what we call our Creative Spark Explore Academy trainees. So, I co-created a Movement Moment with our Sparkler, Aliya from St. Paul’s Towers, using the theme of lineage and ancestral wisdom to create a guided meditation and Chi Gong exercise that brought a moment of body awareness and mindfulness to the symposium.
Just breathe! Sparkler Aliya leads the group in a Movement Moment with Chi Gong
I noticed as we moved through the presentations that each creative outlet and collaboration reflected the ways in which genuine connection between facilitators and participants fostered courage, vulnerability, and a sense of hope for the future. One Gen Blend poet shared that she had learned to try new ways of expression especially when it felt scary to do so, because in the end if she were “terrible at it” no dire consequences were experienced. She simply was brave enough to try something new which gave her hope for continued new experiences well into her elder years. Our Sparkler Aliya conveyed in the Q&A session how the stress of the 2020 pandemic shutdown was what led her to start practicing Chi Gong to build and maintain her energy levels in dire circumstances. Her energy improved and her stress decreased, so she then took what she learned to her residents and started to lead them in Chi Gong classes, noticing that even the least engaged residents were following along and getting a move on.
Teaching Artist Suzanne Reich leads the group in a slow looking experience with this piece of art “I will find the way” by Crystal McDonald at Front Porch Gallery
In both cases, difficult experiences birthed creativity (through writing, movement, teaching and sharing) which fostered connection: to lineage, to community, and to self. I find that I often feel hopeless when I feel alone and cut off from others who also have the courage to create and self-express. When I’m “out here on my own”, I don’t have that social safety net to catch me when inevitably my sense of hope wavers. But, through creative connections, I find that community of dreamers and brave creators and then my sense of hope prevails. We are stronger together. Our creativity and connection are the fuel for hope to thrive. This lesson cements my sense of purpose in continuing to promote the power of creativity through Creative Spark as we face a challenging world where hope is needed more than ever. I encourage you to take a moment of reflection on how you could use creativity to overcome challenging times and find safer spaces with a community that lifts people up and celebrates their uniqueness!
Even if you missed the Creative Aging Symposium, you can still access the wonderful stories and experiences from the recording conveniently posted on our YouTube playlist. And, save the date for our next Creative Aging Symposium on June 11, 2026 from 2 - 3:30pm.
Veronicah Cohen is the Program Manager of Creative Spark and supports the development of arts-based learning and engagement strategies across the Front Porch network and beyond.