Denison students learn life lessons while painting portraits

NEWARK – Some college students can see right past the generation gap.

After spending the past few weeks visiting with and painting the portraits of nursing home residents, about 20 Denison University students say they have learned to see aging in a whole new way.

Twenty residents of Flint Ridge Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, recruited to participate in DU art professor Ron Abram’s “Drawing the Portrait” class, talked with students and sat for portraits. The images were unveiled Monday at a reception at the center in Newark.

“This has been a wonderful intergenerational experience,” co-activity director Kurstie Pack said. “We’re hoping to coordinate with other departments at Denison and keep this going.”

As the residents, most in their 80s and 90s, arrived for the reception in wheelchairs and walkers, the students found “their people” and showed them the results of their mutual effort.

Adam Rice, a junior, beamed at Lelah, whom he had painted in shades of blue.

“She’s had a hard life, but her Mormon faith has given her the stamina to go on,” he said. “When you think of older people, you only see them as they are now, but they have had lives. Lelah was the manager of a superstore.”

One of the more popular portraits featured Libby, 96, with a beloved toy poodle who visits her regularly.

“She was one of 14 children,” freshman Mira Syed said of her subject. “She has a great sense of humor and has no problem acting goofy. She wears crazy hats and wigs and googly-eye glasses. It has been eye-opening for me to realize that even the simplest things can raise someone’s spirits.”

Freshman Sarah Bradley found she had things in common with her subject, Betty.

“We are both religious,” Bradley said. “Betty is so sweet and loving and has such a positive outlook on life.”

Despite the inconvenience of a wheelchair, resident Alice looked cheerful in an aqua tee shirt emblazoned with her title, Super Girl.

“Alice is not outgoing, so at first it was difficult for us to communicate,” freshman Payton Hoang said. “But she is really nice and wise, and we learned to talk with each other. It was a process.”

Senior Arden Kozeny called the experience of working with her new friend Lou “humbling and heartening.”

“It’s a good reminder of how little we really know one another,” Kozeny said. “Here is this woman who has had a heartbreaking past few years, facing deaths and accidents, and she is still so resilient.”

Flint Ridge assistant administrator Jesse Mosssaid he was surprised when Abrams reached out to propose the experience.

“It’s the first time this has happened in the three years I have been here,” he said.

“It’s a neat idea,” said Sally Johnson, a temporary resident receiving rehabilitation. “Something like this breaks up the monotony, and all of us are excited to see our pictures.”