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Art swap reaches seniors Down Under

Christenson Village
postcards
One of the artists, Irene Brougham, is Christenson’s flower gardener. She exchanged postcards with Valmia in Australia.

On Aug. 9 a group of eager residents at Christenson Village Care Home in Gibsons dialed a phone number in Australia and awakened a sleepy Lisa Hort (it was tomorrow morning Down Under). They shouted greetings and she met each resident in the room over Skype. 

It was friendly. One man asked who she thought would win the rugby – Australia or New Zealand. “You have to ask?” Hort answered. They closed the call to her by singing a rousing chorus of Waltzing Matilda. 

This connection with Australia was the result of residents going global with their art. Many of the seniors are engaged in a postcard art swap with residents of two care centres in the town of Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia. They connect with these art pals by painting or drawing on large postcards that are currently hanging in the activity room of Christenson. On one side is a message about their homes, their place or about themselves, while on the other side is a similar message and painting from an Australian. 

It all started with a meeting between Christenson’s activities coordinator Bruce Devereux and his counterpart in Australia, Lisa Hort. She saw it as a way to build relationships around the world, to connect and correspond with one another. 

Port Macquarie residents painted one side of their postcards and the bundle was placed in a bulky package and mailed to Gibsons. Hort hoped that the Gibsons’ residents would return the cards with their own art in time for an art crawl on their side of the water. Unfortunately the bundle sat at Canada Customs for three months, but when it finally arrived, Christenson residents were ready to add their art. Bill Beaton painted a realistic raccoon, for example, on one side, while the other side might feature a gecko or other creature from Australia drawn by a new friend. The messages from Canada were personal: “This barn [in the picture] makes me think of my daughter’s farm in Salmon Arm, B.C.,” said one. Another said, “I taught kindergarten to Grade 9.” 

The postcards are hanging in the activity room at Christenson for another week and visitors are welcome to view them. After that they will be sent to Australia for a similar show.