Young and Old Find Common Ground

Children from Hamilton School and seniors from the Care Pavilion Nursing Home spent hours toiling shoulder-to-shoulder on a street-level wall in front of the Hamilton School. But this was no ordinary project - this mosaic represented 4 years of intergenerational programs by NetworkArts and NewCourtland. And it was the first time that seniors worked hand-in-hand with children in a community endeavor outside the confines of their care facility.

This project was part of an ongoing partnership NetworkArts has with NewCourtland, which manages five nursing home facilities. Fifteen students from Hamilton School were in the core group and paired with seniors, although the entire school participated in the Hamilton School mosaic installation.

The students interviewed the seniors and mined their memories for knowledge polished by time. Both the students and seniors worked on a number of drawing, sculpting, and painting projects together during the course of the year. The students also made their own drawings, sculpted ceramic portraits of the seniors, and wrote poetry expressing their feelings about the experience. This resulted in the construction of two mosaics at the nursing home.

But to celebrate the growing bond between the students and seniors and to provide the seniors with an opportunity to create artwork in the community, NetworkArts created a third mosaic on the street façade of Hamilton School. The finished artwork contains poetry and images by the students that expresses a respectful realization that with age comes wisdom.