ArtSage
ArtSage was a Minnesota organization focused on creative participation in later life. Formerly the Minnesota Creative Arts and Aging Network, it trained artists and helped organizations serving older adults develop arts experiences. Its documented work included a statewide partnership with the Minnesota State Arts Board during 2013 and 2014.
Organization profile
- Organization type
- Arts and health organization
- Headquarters / base
- Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States
- Geographic scope
- Historical programmes across Minnesota
- Minnesota Creative Arts and Aging Network
- MN Creative Arts & Aging Network
Medical focus
Activities
Population served
Training artists and senior-serving organizations
The Arts Board’s fiscal year 2014 report describes a partnership begun in 2013. ArtSage developed a curriculum for training other practitioners, combining expertise from the creative aging field with contributions from MacPhail Center for Music and Kairos Alive!. The work involved both the Twin Cities and communities elsewhere in Minnesota.
The same report records introductory workshops in Austin, Fergus Falls, Grand Rapids, Minneapolis and Saint Cloud during fiscal year 2014. It also describes discussions connecting arts, aging, human services and academic leaders, followed by a statewide arts-and-aging conference in June 2014. These activities concentrated on the people and organizations delivering arts programmes to older adults.
Sources: [1].
A later record of its training
A MacPhail announcement published on 25 September 2024 provides a later reference to ArtSage’s training work. Introducing the director of its Connecting Voices Chorus, MacPhail reported that she had completed an ArtSage course for artists working with older adults. It also described her separate dementia-related training and work in senior living settings.
That account illustrates how ArtSage training remained part of a practitioner’s professional background. The announcement concerns MacPhail’s choir for people living with dementia and their care partners; it does not describe a new ArtSage course or transfer of the organization to MacPhail.
Sources: [3].
Reading the historical record
VSA Minnesota’s November 2018 directory identified ArtSage as a Twin Cities arts-and-aging resource. The directory gave artsagemn.org as its website. This dated entry does not provide a dissolution date or name a successor. The profile therefore documents the organization’s historical educational role without presenting the former domain as a verified current programme website.
Sources: [2].
Further health reading
Understanding dementia provides background for creative participation in later life and care settings, the field in which ArtSage trained artists.
Depression is an important subject in older-adult wellbeing. This overview offers health context for ArtSage’s historical work around creative participation in later life.
Sources
- Minnesota State Arts Board: fiscal year 2014 annual report, arts and aging partnership
- VSA Minnesota: Arts Programs in Minnesota for Adults with Disabilities, November 2018
- MacPhail Center for Music: Connecting Voices Chorus director introduction, 25 September 2024
- nccih.nih.gov: health background for Dementia
- nia.nih.gov: health background for Major depressive disorder
Institutional relationships