Viewers participate in the discussion after the film I Remember Better When I Paint.

I Remember Better When I Paint directed by Eric Ellena and Berna Huebner screened at the ALL Arts Gallery in Lowell, MA on June 7. The film was the fourth of six films in the 2011 Lowell Film Collaborative’s Film and Art series.

The documentary introduced information about the disease as well as presented the personal stories of people living with Alzheimer’s. Some of the symptoms people living with Alzheimer’s face include apathy, anxiety, and agitation. “I can’t do what I used to do” becomes an overriding mantra leading to a cycle where the Alzheimer’s sufferer continues to have less and less confidence in his or her abilities.

While a large body of research does not exist on the effectiveness of art as treatment, many caregivers who work with Alzheimer’s patients have turned to art as a therapy to help their patients manage symptoms. Hilda Goldblatt Gorenstein, an artist whose work was featured in in the 1933 World Fair, told students of the Art Institute of Chicago who were visiting her in a care facility, “I remember better when I paint.” The students worked with her as she started painting once again and noticed her mood shift to enthusiasm as she continued to paint regularly. The film described how this same kind of transformation occurs to many people living with Alzheimer’s who also create art.

Besides creating art, there are many initiatives at Alzheimer’s care facilities to bring their residents to art museums so that they can discuss the work with each other. Many people who see these museum visitors interacting are surprised to find that they are in the disease’s late stages. The film showed people living with Alzheimer’s describing the expressions and emotions of the characters in paintings at museums, a contrast to an almost awkward silence that can occur when they remain at a care facility.

Sean Caulfield, co-founder of Artists for Alzheimers.

Special guests Sean Caulfield, co-founder of Artists for Alzheimer’s; Dr. Ruth Remington, Associate Professor at UMass Lowell; and Julianne Hertz, Arts Therapist and instructor at Lesley University held a discussion after the film.

One audience member told about her concerns connecting with her mother in a nursing home. Hertz suggested bringing in some CDs of music and magazines with ads from the mother’s early years. Another audience member expressed concerns about a loved one experiencing paranoia. Caulfield recommended empathizing, stating that action will be taken, and then following through, without lying. When asked about stuffed animals as a gift for people in a nursing home, Dr. Remington warned that it is important to give age appropriate materials as gifts so that care facility staff won’t react by “baby talking”. A stuffed animal of a realistic cat would be an appropriate gift, but a stuffed animal that might cause the staff to “baby talk” should not be given. All three stressed that people with Alzheimer’s need to be treated with age appropriate respect.

Dr. Ruth Remington, Associate Professor at UMass Lowell.

Along with the issue of respecting family members with Alzheimer’s, the panel also discussed how people living with Alzheimer’s will tend to rise up to challenges if expectations are set appropriately. Many family members who give up on Alzheimer’s family members often feel surprised that their loved ones might have the ability to dress and feed themselves after they challenge the family member to exceed his or her current capabilities. Including the family member in more activities can help the family cope with the struggles of Alzheimer’s.

Artists for Alzheimer’s, co-founded by Caulfield, is looking for artists to volunteer their time. Check out Artists for Alzheimers if you are interested.

The Lowell Film Collaborative’s next screening is a special outdoor screening on June 22 of Riding Bikes with the Dutch at Shedd Park in Lowell. See The Lowell Film Collaborative for more information.

Julianne Hertz, Arts Therapist and instructor at Lesley University.

A Loom Press release party took place on Sunday May 22 in the O’Leary Library at UMass Lowell. Kate Hanson Foster’s Mid Drift, Dr. Paul Hudon’s All In Good Time, and Dr. Robert Forrant and Dr. Christoph Strobel’s The Big Move: Immigrant Voices from a Mill City were featured at the event. Readings from the books took place with Foster and Hudon reading from their poetry books and immigrants reading their own stories from The Big Move.

Party attendees socialize before the book readings. Photo by Joseph Marion/Loom Press.

Mid Drift

Foster’s Mid Drift, a book of poetry inspired by her time in Lowell during her 20s, covers many topics drawn from the seedier side of Lowell life such as homelessness, prostitution and infidelity. These themes are mixed with poetry about friends and family. Lowell’s historical elements, such as the old mill buildings, provided Foster with “a springboard of creativity” with which to think about those themes. She says that writers respond to the mill buildings because they are a constant reminder of Lowell’s historical significance. In her own writing, Lowell as the pinnacle of the industrial revolution provided many ideas for her work. Foster always enjoyed writing poetry and decided to write a book-length manuscript as part of an MFA writing seminar at Bennington College.

When asked why she enjoys writing poetry, Foster said, “To me, I’m always attracted to writing that can enchant, sing and inspire even when distilled down to it’s most purest state. There is a pleasant ‘surprise’ factor in poetry that’s successful in this way, and that is something I am always aspiring to achieve in my own writing.”

Foster put Loom press on the top of her list of publishers to which she submitted because she wanted Lowell to, in a sense, own the book. She has written one poem for her next manuscript and hopes to publish another book in the future.

Kate Hanson Foster reads from Mid Drift.

All In Good Time

Hudon, a historian and regionalist, decided to write some poetry after surgery on his hand since it was more pragmatic to write poetry than write history with a recovering hand. He challenged himself to write one poem a day and even after his hand recovered, Hudon continued to write, ending up with a year of poems. The result of that effort turned into All In Good Time.

Themes about identity, religion, and confidences between people recur throughout the book. A waterfall and the birds flying outside Hudon’s apartment window are examples of the imagery used in many of the poems. He sees the book as resembling a journal in poetry form. When he looks back at his poems, he notices the recurring themes and feels it is a way of getting to know himself.

When asked about his writing process, Hudon said, “We’re living in a mysterium here. We have some idea of where we are but I don’t think any of us get the whole thing. There are energies and options moving around us all the time.” Two examples Hudon gave of this energy at work were when two people fall in love or even when a plumber comes up with an idea. True to this idea, Hudon writes in the morning for about an hour to an hour and twenty minutes, a time he feels the most creative energy.

After he finished the writings, Hudon put the poems aside for years until he showed them to Paul Marion, the founder of Loom Press. Marion thought the book was important to publish due to its Lowell connection. Now that this book has been published, Hudon recommends readers choose a poem each day rather than reading many poems at once to get the most out of the experience.

Paul Hudon reads from All In Good Time.

The Big Move: Immigrant Voices from a Mill City

The Big Move tells the story of immigrants who have moved to Lowell in the past 25 years. Forrant and Strobel collected these stories as part of a larger project for the Lowell National Historical Park in which 35 immigrants were interviewed. A good deal of research has been conducted about the experiences of immigrants in Lowell, but this work gave Forrant and Strobel the unique opportunity to add to the smaller body of knowledge about more recent immigrants. Forrant and Strobel worked on their free weekends for over three years to complete the study. Forrant said this book represents a great Lowell collaboration since the cover art was created by two Lowell High School students. Anabelle Souza and Atena Vilorio created the murals depicted in the cover as part of an immigrant history mural project. Graphic design and publishing were done by Lowell businesses Higgins & Ross and Loom Press. Forrant also has a connection as he teaches at UMass Lowell and has taught about Lowell history for many years.

Strobel collected the interviews used in The Big Move with the help of graduate students. Each interview followed an outline but maintained an informal conversational tone to help the immigrants tell their stories. Many immigrants were willing to share their stories without much prompting, but others needed more questions to help relate their experiences. Strobel said he needed to distinguish when to ask questions and when it is “important to sometimes shut up and listen.” He also said, “If people aren’t talking, it doesn’t mean they don’t have a story.” He found it was important to patiently bring a story out of the people he interviewed.

The immigrants often explained a harsh reality and reflected on some truth they sought in their lives. Some of the stories about the Cambodian and Armenian genocide, racial slurs, and hate crimes even surprised Strobel who specializes in the area of race and ethnicity. He also discovered positive interactions between different immigrant groups in Lowell as they collaborate with each other.

Forrant and Strobel’s next project consists of incorporating the report done for the National Park Service into a book about Lowell history that starts with Native Americans and includes recent immigrant history.

Dr. Robert Forrant and Dr. Christoph Strobel pose with their book. Photo by Joseph Marion/Loom Press.

Mimi Parseghian, whose story is featured in The Big Move, reads passages aloud.