By Julia Boyle
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

On Tuesday mornings in the Town Square crafts room at Oak Crest, the only sound you hear is the soft touch of brush on canvas. Oil and watercolor painters are hard at work creating stunning scenes of old red barns, flowery still lifes, or mountainous landscapes.

But you won’t just see paintings on the walls. Stained glass suncatchers hang in the windows, quilts sit folded around the room, and pottery and wooden carvings decorate the shelves.

Art groups at Oak Crest and Charlestown include ceramics, quilting, beading, knitting, creative writing, wood carving, stained glass, sewing, painting— the list goes on. Whoever wants to create a group simply contacts a community resources manager to start the process.

Designed for creative arts
“Erickson encourages the creative talent of the people who live here,” says Ann Walsh, Oak Crest’s executive director. Both Charlestown and Oak Crest have three creative arts studios—one in each clubhouse.

Combined, the studios are suitable for almost any medium— from stained glass  to  pottery. They also provide storage space for tools and supplies, though some people prefer to transport their materials to and from their homes.

“I do a lot of work in my kitchen, and then we come to the creative arts studio once a week to meet,” says Henry Engelhardt, a woodcarver who lives at Charlestown. He has just put the finishing touches on a small wooden fish, complete with scales and fins, and has started to detail a miniature deer.

Some teach, some learn
The Charlestown Wood Carving Group has no teacher, as the members are all seasoned carvers, but Gudrun Everett has taught oil painting at Oak Crest since 1996. Students, who also live at the community, learn aspects of studio art such as supplies, canvas preparation, and painting contemporary realism.

“I started the class because of the facilities here and the amount of interest from people who either have a background in painting or have found a new hobby,” Everett says.