By Meghan Streit
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

Art serves many purposes in our lives. It can inspire, it can honor someone or something, adorn a room, or provide a creative outlet. Unleashing your creativity through art is not just an enjoyable hobby—it can also have big benefits for your physical and mental health.

On-site studio brings out the artist within
Sedgebrook provides a variety of activities for residents to exercise their artistic abilities. In addition to an on-site creative arts studio, Sedgebrook periodically offers special art classes and events.

In one such class called “A Peek at Picasso,” Sedgebrook residents got to try their hands at a variety of different techniques over the course of four weeks. Art instructors Lisa Black and Diane Capasso brought in well-known paintings and taught participants to replicate techniques like cubism and portraiture in their own works of art.

“It’s more about inspiration than anything else,” Black says. “We show them the procedure, but we don’t just stand up there and do one.”

More opportunities
Many people who move to Sedgebrook find that they have more opportunities to try new activities that they previously may not have had the time or motivation to explore. The abundance of onsite classes and clubs provides a wide variety of choices—and living among interesting friends and neighbors gives people the inspiration to try something new.

A new passion
Community member Ruth Chausow says she never painted until she moved to Sedgebrook. Now she has the time, space, and supplies to pursue a new hobby that brings her continued enjoyment.

“We had a group class without any instruction, so I was looking for an opportunity like this,” Chausow says while she applies blue and green paint to a canvas in Sedgebrook’s sunlit art studio.

She says she enjoys painting in Sedgebrook’s classes because “you can do what you want and there is no judgment.”