Category: Arts and Culture

Art collecting has a reputation for being the province of the extremely wealthy — hedge fund managers buying at Sotheby’s, corporate collections assembled by acquisition committees, the names on museum donor walls. This reputation obscures the reality that serious, meaningful collecting happens at e…

There is a specific form of writing that only becomes possible after a certain amount of life has been lived and enough time has passed to see it clearly. Memoir — the written account of personal experience that attempts to find the meaning in what happened, to understand the self that did the livin…

Architecture is the art form that surrounds everyone constantly and is actively perceived by almost no one. We move through buildings every day — offices, homes, churches, museums, train stations, shopping streets — and notice them, if at all, in the most superficial way: attractive or not, convenie…

For older adults at every point on the spectrum of health, musical engagement offers documented benefits for brain function, emotional wellbeing, physical health, and social connection.

Art therapy is a clinical discipline that uses the creative process as a therapeutic tool. Understanding both formal art therapy and therapeutic art-making helps older adults find the right creative support for their needs.

Major museums have transformed what a visit can mean for older adults. Here is what is available, how to access it, and how to get the most from these remarkable resources.

Community theater has long been one of the great democratizing institutions in American arts life. Here is how older adults can find their stage.

A comprehensive guide to arts and culture in later life — why it matters, how to engage with it, what the research says, and the many doorways through which you can step in.

Everything you need to know to start painting in retirement — from choosing your first medium to finding a class to quieting the inner critic.

There is a version of cultural life that most people have access to in theory and almost no one builds in practice: a life genuinely organized around art, music, literature, performance, architecture, and the creative traditions of the places you inhabit and visit. Not a life of occasional museum vi…

Most people experience museums the wrong way — and the wrong way produces exactly the result you’d expect: vague satisfaction, sore feet, and the nagging feeling that something important was present in those rooms but somehow didn’t fully land. The default museum visit involves walking through galle…

Classical music and opera have a reputation for being difficult, exclusive, and the province of people who grew up with them — a reputation that keeps a significant number of people who would genuinely love them from ever trying. This reputation is wrong, or at least wrong enough to be worth challen…