Creative Lives: Ten Years of Arts & Aging at CommonBond

Creative Lives: Ten Years of Arts & Aging at CommonBond is on view at the UROC Gallery in North Minneapolis through Monday, October 26. It's an exhibition marking a decade of CommonBond's Arts & Aging program, which brings free arts classes—materials included—directly into the communities where people live. The classes are led by professional teaching artists and are open to adults 55 and older.

The program started in 2016 with a storytelling class at Riverview Senior Apartments, a pilot supported by E.A. Michelson Philanthropy through EngAGE Heartland. From there it grew to include more communities and a wider range of creative practices. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the classes kept going via Zoom, phone calls, and mailed materials, and since then the program has expanded beyond senior communities to include adults 55 and older living in CommonBond's family and supportive housing.

CommonBond itself is a non-profit founded in 1971 that's become one of the Upper Midwest's premier providers of affordable housing with services, supporting more than 12,000 people a year across 58 cities in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa. The exhibition looks back at ten years of that work.

The show is at the UROC Gallery, part of the Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center (UROC) in North Minneapolis. It's free and open to everyone, and it runs through October 26.