The Evergreen senior center in Colonia opens the gates for the seniors with welcoming arms of joy, pleasure cheerfulness and Solace, and the sunshine fills the hearts of all that enter the gates with tranquil joy. It is really a place of liveliness, where everyone is smiling, exchanging greetings wishing good morning to each other by the hallway. The posted authorities in the office and coordinators are always ready to answer all the unanswered questions of the visitors old and new.
The center has a wonderful transportation Center, which renders services to seniors, paying personal attention to see to their comfort when being picked from their homes and then back. The drivers are trained to give warm welcome to all, conversing with them in gentle and caring attitude.
The inside of the center has many activities being performed on daily basis from 8:30 to 4:30 p.m. that include music, art, and other activities done as Zumba, chair yoga, Thai-chi, Ballroom dance, the line dance. There is library and a computer room that helps them keep busy doing literary work, research work, and also play games on computers. Thursday, is the day when the a big hall type room is full of senior artist doing their work dedicatedly either starting or completing their woven tasks. The inside and outside walls of that room and the outside gallery wall displays the colorful work of art and pencil work of some senior artist.
Meet the artist Andy and Henry Wong
Art is not what you see but what you make others see” as Edgar Degas has rightly said.
The senior gentleman Henry Wong is here with his art of gallery of paintings done in years of persistence to access the heights of all the rainbow colors to expose and express his thoughts, feelings, and emotions that occupy the corners of this room walls within and outside.
As you see in picture are Andy and Henry Wong who is giving finishing touches to his beautiful picture under of nature Andy’s Guidance.
Talking to Andy, a dedicated artist, is doing completion of a pencil work sketch that is spread in front of him . Answering all my questions, and giving me information about the art and the interest of an artist in performing the activities, he says-’ You can do pencil color, water color, charcoal, acrylic color, water color, pen and ink, and oil paint too.’
Andy the artist at the age of 10 went to school and took art as major in high school which allowed him to prove his efficiency in the senior year as he became the art editor. He went to Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art, where he mastered pictorial illustration.
People enjoy doing the artwork from the sample given to them initially to reproduce the replica of flowers, birds, trees, and nature.
The truth of the saying -“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” Edward Hopper.
A person of any age in a right atmosphere, at right time, when exposed to the art develops the talent and begins to express his unpredictable and predictable feelings and emotions of colors that is at times louder than silence. The unspoken language of different shapes and different colors, merges with the background of the collage. At times the shades of these colors speak volumes. At the center I see his polishing pictures giving beauty to the walls. These pictorial illustration are not complete without pencil watercolor, ink or oil paint.
It is a proven fact that there is life as long as art is living in the hearts of humans to live life as years go by and by teaching an artist to Live Life and brighten the surrounding with amazing rays of joy.
Devi Nangrani