Afternoon August 28, 2022

I thought it would be cool to explore Cubism after returning from the MoMA (which houses hundreds, if not thousands, of Picasso). So for the next session, we designed a workshop for Picasso Portraiture, where the seniors would paint a portrait of the person they missed the most.

The seniors were curious about whom each other was painting, and we began to converse about their past lives. Penny painted her dad and told us how he came to her rescue as a former figure skater when she broke her knee at a High School party. "I was grounded for two months," she said, "but I couldn't walk anyways." She rolled her eyes.

Lack of an imaginary sitter, Paul and Rick decided to paint each other. As they tried to capture each other's signature looks on canvas, the two old gentlemen bickered about whose painting turned out more atrocious as their shoulders shook with mirth. Their friendly banter brought a lightness to everyone around them.

One of the ladies had mild Parkinson's disease and struggled to grasp the paintbrush. I sat down to help her, and I would paint as she described her late son. From his gray eyes to his favourite yellow polo, we recreated a picture of Henry through our creative imagination. As we wrapped up the painting, I asked her to sign the gorgeous portrait, but she suddenly couldn't remember how to write her name. "Look, I-I don't know what's going on, I know it, I know it.."

I watched her growing anguish as she shook her head, fingers trembling. "Jo- it's Josie, Josie, I think."

I took the pencil away from her. "Josie? Like J-O-S-I-E?" I sketched out the letters lightly with a pencil.

"Yes, I think so, my dear. Oh! I just can't remember!"

I watched her giggle in joy and hold up the portrait, glowing in pride. We talked for a long time that day, about her son, about his stories when he was little, and about her.