Mark Your Calendars! “A day-long celebration of your creative life” to examine the role that creative expression can play in promoting engagement, healing and wellness for all ages. Join us for interactive exhibitions, performances, displays and discussion around creative expression and well-being.   Creative Aging is an invitation to harvest the bounty of your life's experience and celebrate the power of the arts to transform, engage, and bring meaning. Pioneer in the field Harvard MD Gene D. Cohen describes the process as C =me2: creativity is me to a higher power. When we focus creative energy on the mass of all we have experienced, it transforms and enlarges our sense of self and brings a greater state of emotional health and well being.   Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit. - poet e.e. cummings   The Kelowna Art Gallery encourages us to Explore, Connect and Create EXPLORE: The Artist's Garden Project: Pieces of What Creative Aging mentors. Delight in how Vernon-based artists Carolina Sanchez de Bustamante and her son Maxwell Sterry teamed up to create a special experience before Max leaves for university this fall. Their installation sculpture is a gift to their relationship, the environment and our community. The produce will be harvested in the fall by gallery visitors. CONNECT: Paintings tell the story of how a Country ages. A Story of Canadian Art Creative Aging embraces our history. Specially guided tours of this important exhibition of historical Canadian art will help build a relationship between you and the forty paintings in this show. Become friends with the Group of Seven Painters, Tom Thomson, David Milne, and other artists active in the early to mid twentieth century in Canada. CREATE: Imagine your own "Advanced Style". Creative Aging invites play. Join in 'Scarf Play' with Kelowna artist Dee MacGibbon. Bring your own scarf and share its story. Weave community in a collaborative 'scarf relief' sculpture.   Visit these presenters at tables at the Rotary Centre for the Arts: Art Education • Conscious Eldering • Caring Clowns of Central Okanagan • Cottage Quilting • Feel the rhythm drum circle • heART Fit (painting & woodwork) • Kelowna Bonsai Club • Kelowna Calligraphers' Guild • My Studio • New Vintage Theatre • Okanagan Institute • Wood Lake Books • Okanagan Men's Sheds Association • Orchard Valley Quilters Guild • Parkinson Pleasure Painters • Parkinson Seniors Society • Play with Paint • Ponderosa Spinners & Weavers • Potters Addict Studio: hand building & pottery wheel demo's • Sashiko: decorative Japanese stitching • Sing 4 your life • Society for Learning in Retirement (SLR) • Tai Chi • White Sails A Cappella Chorus • Wood'N Wildcraft   Performances will run at the Rotary Centre throughout the day: (*participation welcome) (**listening/watching pleasure) * Holistic Breathwork • **Poetry Reading • **D'Lite (a cappella ensemble) • **Drumming on Arabic Tabla • *Feel the Rhythm Drum Circle • **Kelowna Community Chorus • *Little Big Band • **Merrie Pipers Recorder Orchestra • *Parkinson Seniors Society *dancing • **SLR GeriActors • *Tai Chi • **Ukulele Mammas • ARTE funktional is presenting a painting demonstration in The Factory parking lot, corner of Cawston and St. Paul. Creative Aging cultivates a valuation of experienced mentors and wise counsel in community. 75 year old senior in the Federation of Canadian Artist abstractionist Barry Rafuse will paint with 19 year old emerging artist Anna Anderson, a student at the University of Victoria. First meeting that day, the two will team up on site to paint a large abstract canvas. See what Barry and Anna create and try out their techniques in a group collaborative painting led by RCA's heART Fit. Tour Arte Funktional feature exhibition luminescence + Art, artwork created by artists over 65 years of age: Ann Kipling, Barry Rafuse, Robert Bigelow, Mary McCulloch, David Alexander and Leonhard Epp.   Visit ARTE funktional from 10am-4pm for an amazing day of creative activities, all in the Cultural District. Creative Aging brings community together.   "Creative expression is the personal floating device for achieving buoyancy, balance and wellness while navigating the sea of life."   Seize the Day. Aging has its benefits. A range of life experiences The ability to recognize what is important and enduring Objectivity and an even temperament Fewer inhibitions An understanding of how one learns best and the ability to shape your own learning processes . More time to devote to civic engagement Discard the myths: To be old is to be sick. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. The lights may be on, but the voltage is low. Make this a day to: Explore the wide variety of groups and individuals in our community who are engaged in Creative Aging Connect with like minded curious creators, and imagine your own untapped talents Create a more vibrant you