News
Western New York Tele-Stories: Creative Gift Sharing
June 3, 2022
Our most recent round of Tele-Stories came to a close in Western New York and we are eager to share some of the beautiful artwork that has been inspired by the phone calls between TimeSlips Community-Based Artists and the elders they were able to connect with through this project.
This latest Tele-Stories project was generously funded by the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation. As a part of the first ever Western New York Tele-Stories project, TimeSlips partnered with Hearts & Hands, an organization that connects frail or vulnerable older adults in Erie and Niagara counties with needed services.
Four local artists were matched with up to seven elders and facilitated creative conversations and activities with them by phone. This talented group of interdisciplinary artists from across Western New York were all trained and certified in TimeSlips, receiving additional training on how to facilitate creative engagement remotely by phone.
Throughout the eight weeks of calls, artists collaborated with their “Tele-Buddies” to work towards a beautiful creative gift that is shared back to the participants, and the broader community. These gifts were made by each artist with words, ideas, and inspiration from the elders that they worked with. Today we share the work created by the four artists, showcasing the words of elder participants they were paired with.
Julio Valentin
For their gifts, Julio created a series of poems formed on a disc for an Image 3D Viewer (pictured below), inspired by the many mornings they reminisce and look forward to. The second disc, due in August, is already in development!
Julio shared about his process. “My process with my Tele-Buddies was not only about drawing creativity from them but also giving them agency and confidence to draw it out of me. The catchphrase. “that’s a poem” became synonymous with how incredibly rewarding our conversations have been. To this day, I continue to be an open door for my Tele-Buddies to write to and sometimes text, whenever a spark of creativity comes along. Even after losing many of my notes after driving over the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, there is great solace knowing that what brought us together is a great wind of reprieve and hope like TimeSlips.”
Cynthia Pegado
Cynthia became a Certified Facilitator a couple of years ago and kept in touch, eager to use her artistic background in a TimeSlips project. For her creative gifts, Cynthia decided to make scarves that were inspired by each caller. She wanted to give a wearable piece of art that could be wrapped around the individual, like an embrace. Cynthia shared that she worked to infuse her gifts with “elements of beauty and calm from the natural world, with my love, before they find their heart-center home with the One who dreamed them during our TeleStories calls.”
Cynthia was able to give her gifts to her callers in person. Here is what Cynthia shared about meeting one of her “Tele-Buddies”.
“I was absolutely delighted to hear her first words upon opening her portrait-story scarf:
It’s so me!
The soft blues & pinks of her imagined place of peace and beauty, the personification in the wildflower blowing in the wind, she recognized the symbology at first sight….and she knew immediately, what every detail in the garland around the “Made for Karen” represented— we had had a T-S call booked for Mardi Gras, and I asked a festive Beautiful Question: If you could have three Mardi Gras necklaces, what colors would they be? Now Karen IS a watercolor artist, so she pondered this question very carefully and thoughtfully. Upon seeing the Mardi Gras story in the scarf she said:
Oh! All my necklace colors!
Yes, I made a design in the painted “necklace” using the colors she answered with: blue, purple, dark pink. She absolutely recognized herself in the gift I crafted for her.”
Sukanya Burman
Sukanya presents a dance film that is a culmination of the answers to the “Beautiful Questions” provided by the participants in this collaboration. In this film, the content of these answers is explored through dance movements in different locales: in the mountains, by the lake, and in the city.
Christina Muscatello
Christina collaborated with her participants to create small books of poetry that feature words inspired by the conversations they had. Each book begins with an artist statement of each elder, setting the tone for their work in the following pages. Each elder also received a framed drawing that Christina drew, based on one of the poems they wrote.
To read through these poems, please click on the links below.
Antionette
Robert R
Artist Bios
Julio Montalvo Valentin (They/His/Julio) is a co-founder of the late CringeWorthy Poets Press and the author of three chapbooks, the latest titled Those Who Pray to Rice (NightBallet Books, 2019). Julio is also a member of the Latino/a/x arts collective called Los Artistas del Barrio Buffalo (LAdB), a Teaching Artist at the Just Buffalo Literary Center, and holds an M.A. in English Literature from SUNY Buffalo State. They have recently completed a Poetry Mural project as the Poetry Teaching Artist for the “Woke Words” BPS program at P.S. 18. Julio is also a board member for the Spark Filmmakers Collective and a planning committee member of Lit Youngstown 2022 Literary Festival. Aside from joining the inaugural Teaching Artist Mentorship Program with the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable, you can always find Julio ready for the next writing opportunity to share his love of words with everyone they come across at ProcessPoetry.com (coming soon).
Cynthia Pegado (She/Her) is the Founding Director of The Parkinson’s Performance Ensemble and Director of Artpark Bridges. An Interdisciplinary Artist, she creates and performs site-specific dance works and is an exhibited visual artist in mixed media sculpture, photography, and sensory drawing. She established Cynthesis Studios, a mobile hub for developing accessible, customized community engagement programs of therapeutic arts-wellness practices. These programs support people with diverse physical and cognitive abilities and under-served elders and children in the heart of our city. Art Moves Me, designed for Burchfield Penney Art Center, draws people with incurable neurological movement disorder disease and dementias into artistic, expressive dance within the galleries. Sound Dance created for Artpark, invites mindful interaction with nature, visual art, and communal sound-making. Cynthia earned a BFA cum laude from the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, in Dance Performance and achieved a professional performance career dancing on stages across the world with ballet companies based in the USA and Europe. Cynthia loves to share her artistry with others through self-affirming, creative playfulness, and community-building.
Sukanya Burman (She/Her) is a dancer and choreographer born and raised in Kolkata, India. She began her formal dance training in Bharatanatyam at the age of 3 and trained in Kathak, modern, contemporary dance, and ballet. Sukanya holds a Diploma in Contemporary Dance and Movements Arts. She toured nationally and internationally as a repertoire member of Rhythmosaic Dance Company, later moving to NYC to pursue an Independent Training Program at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. Since then she has taught classes and performed extensively both in the US and in India. She is a guest faculty at the Chautauqua Regional Youth Ballet and a guest performer at the Indorican Multicultural Dance Project. She recently founded Sukanya Burman Dance Company in Jamestown, NY. Sukanya is interested in exploring socio-cultural discourse with an emphasis on bridging the gap between Western modern and Indian classical dance. She also hopes to raise awareness, accessibility and provide opportunities in dance through arts education. Sukanya is currently a resident artist in the Curriculum in Motion Institute at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.
Christina Muscatello (She/Her/Hers) is an Art Educator and Creative Aging practitioner, who specializes in drawing out the innate creativity of people living with memory loss and older adults. Since 2005, she has worked with hundreds of people living with memory loss—learning, developing, and refining thoughtful ways to make the arts accessible for them along the way. She is the Founder of Memory Maker Consulting, where she offers private and small group Creative Sessions for people living with memory loss, as well as Creative Aging Workshops and Trainings for museums, care communities, and other organizations. She is also the Co-Founder of the Memory Maker Project, a grassroots non-profit project offering free art and advocacy programs for older adults, people living with memory loss, their loved ones, and anyone seeking an intergenerational experience. She loves a good story and deeply believes that everybody has one to tell.
