QUOTABLE QUOTES

 

“MAC.ART – an innovative community arts project”

 

Helen Kurincic, 2002 Telstra Business Woman of the Year, and executive director of Anglican Aged Care Services Group, described the MAC.ART program as ‘a great success….. providing many residents with additional lifestyle choices and opportunities for social exchange and positive ageing’. She continues, ‘we have received excellent feedback from the residents and staff at Broughton Hall and Colton Close and Dowell Court who are very proud of their works of art and appear to have thoroughly enjoyed their participation in such an innovative community arts project.… I congratulate you on your obvious skills, dedication and enthusiasm that have been instrumental to the success of the project’. She concludes with this statement: ‘you can be justifiably proud of the result, as indeed are all the artists who have had the opportunity to be involved in this great initiative’.

 

The MAC.ART program has been variously described as ‘innovative’, ‘outstanding’ and ‘remarkable’. Residents have described the MAC.ART program as “a thrill and privilege to be part of”, “a once in a lifetime opportunity” and “a chance to participate in something with a lasting legacy”. Several residents confided they were “astonished” they were able to paint. One even commented at the end of a program that it was “a surprise to see it all happening before our eyes, we never expected to see the finished artwork look so professional ”. One 95-year-old resident even said to me that she was “grateful God had given her time” to see the painting completed.

 

“MAC.ART - lifts the heart and soul”.

 

Mrs. Bridie Harlow, resident and sacristan of the chapel at St Paul’s Court, described her participation in the ‘Windows on the World’ artwork as like “being transported in a way that lifted our hearts and souls”.

 

“MAC.ART - transcends age, disability and circumstance”.

 

John Begg, Acting Executive Director of Anglican Aged Care Services Group, described the benefits of the MAC.ART process: “this celebration of life through painting is recognition that the opportunity to learn and to grow transcends age, disability and circumstance”.