Every year, Ruth’s Table and Creative Spark partner with older adult communities, local nonprofits, intergenerational partners, and community programs working beyond the arts to bring together older adults and adults with disabilities through engaging and inclusive creative experiences. 

This year, Feel This Way encouraged us to use the creative process to identify, examine, and capture how we feel through art. Our participants and teaching artists have collaborated on projects that emphasize the sensory nature of art and encourage various forms of self-expression, from painting to music to fiber arts to dance, while embracing spontaneity and play as our only guiding principles.

The online exhibition features a selection of the resulting works, highlighting the diversity of our communities. Each artwork reveals what is possible when we allow ourselves to let go, experiment and play with a purpose.

Opening Celebration | Online
December 8, 2022 | 2-3pm
Via Zoom

Opening Celebration | In-Gallery
December 10, 2022 | 2-4pm
In-person at Ruth’s Table

Exhibition Dates
December 1 - 30, 2022
Ruth’s Table Gallery

Behind the Curtain

In partnership with Casa de Manana

In this series of four abstract works on fabric, each measuring approximately 69” by 69”, participants embraced play and let chance guide them as they explored fluidity with paint. Working collaboratively as a group, participants selected color palettes and experimented with mark-making techniques, building up splashes, splatters and other intentional marks to visually describe a specific mood or emotion. Titled after four emotional states - Anger, Harmony, Enthusiasm, and Anxiety - this body of work gestures to the power of art to uplift, soothe, provoke, or take us to a place of introspection and contemplation. Created in partnership with Casa de Manana program staff.

Listen to the Audio Description of the Artwork Series →

patched together

In partnership with Access SFUSD and Bethany Center.

This series of four large monochromatic mixed-media quilts, measuring 4’ by 5’ each, show an intergenerational, visual conversation between two creative communities. AccessSFUSD students and educators created the first layer of these quilts by designing and cutting out fabric shapes to express feelings through color and form. Students worked together to arrange the shapes and decide on a freeform composition. Bethany Center participants responded to the students’ fabric shapes by adding a layer of expressive marks and brushstrokes using paint in coordinating colors. Created in partnership with teaching artist Raphael Noz.

Listen to the Audio Description of the Artwork Series →

Making the Invisible Visible

In partnership with Bethany Center and San Francisco Campus for Jewish Living

This series of abstract works on paper reflect the expressive and emotive power of color, movement, and spontaneity. Participants started with creating a large painted foundation using large expressive brushstrokes and bold marks, filling the whole space of the background paper with rich saturated colors. The paintings were then deconstructed and reinterpreted into a three-dimensional sculptural surface through collage, stitching, and weaving of cut and torn strips of paper. On several of the artworks, written words or words cut from magazines are layered on top of the woven paper. These words include expressions of emotion: happy, sad, envy, anger, and also words and phrases such as “community”, “do good” and “dream big”. The resulting works are textured, dimensional, layered, and nuanced, just like our emotions. Created in partnership with teaching artist Monica Lee. 

Listen to the Audio Description of the Artwork Series →

Threads of conversation

Big Red House of Rest

In partnership with Dance Generators  

Big Red House of Rest is devised in collaboration with performers and members of Dance Generators, an intergenerational dance company. This video work explores intergenerational communication and reimagining of home from the heart. Directed by Liv Schaffer and presented for Feel This Way as an excerpt.  

 FeelingS Hive

In partnership with Companioa at Institute on Aging, Front Porch Communities, Front Porch Community Services, The Lake Merritt, PEP Housing Communities

This circular chandelier installation, composed of multicolor paper hexagons cascading to the floor, celebrates emotions in color. This work exemplifies the transitory nature of emotions and represents how what we feel can be dynamic and ever changing. 

Listen to the Audio Description of the Artwork →

what we saw

In partnership with Bethany Center

This weaving, measuring 29” by 35”, was created as part of a project series that focused on the exploration of materials, texture, and form. Participants manipulated and twisted strips of paper and plastic to create cords, pulling them through their fingers to ensure they were the right texture and weight before embarking on weaving them together through the loom. The juxtaposition between the soft weaving materials and a strong, harsh saw incorporated in the center of the wooden loom structure can be interpreted as a metaphor for our vulnerability and a reflection on areas of self that might be fragile and benefit from strength, support, and adaptation. The collaborative nature of the work gestures to the power of community and working together for the common benefit of all. Created in partnership with teaching artist Judy Toupin.

Listen to the Audio Description of the Artwork →

CAPE OF HOPES AND DREAMS

In partnership with Bethany Center, students from Stanford University, Alta Vista Middle School, and other SFUSD and private school communities 

This interactive sculptural artwork is centered around the exploration of the sensory nature of materials and form. Built meticulously by hand, this large-scale work started off small. Participants combined different colored and textured materials to create large numbers of pompoms, ribbons, strips, clusters and knots of fabric, building up delicate smaller elements into one larger piece.

Participants explored several composition ideas until settling on a form they felt connected to, carefully assembling materials until the right freeform shape was achieved. The resulting work feels both unconventional and ordered, carefree and methodical. One can get a real sense of pleasure in the sensory process of making and an appreciation for creative expression as a way to weave our diverse voices together. Created in partnership with teaching artist Judy Toupin.

Listen to the Audio Description of the Artwork →

Hands Carry Stories

In partnership with Webster House

The hands of participants at Webster House are in these embellished collages, literally and metaphorically. Some participants worked in pairs to create colorful tracings of each other's hands, asking each other what their hands have done. The tracings were filled in with colored pencil and watercolor. Pink, blue, red and green rhinestones were glued on the fingers and wrists to create sparkling bracelets and rings. Participants hand wrote words in their tracings to describe themselves, such as “quiet” and “caring”, share memories that their hands hold and what they’ve used their hands for. One participant wrote “My hands took care of my family. I taught children to read and write.”

Listen to the Audio Description of the Artwork →

FULL EXHIBITION

This online exhibition presents a selection of artwork. Explore the full Feel This Way exhibition in person at RT gallery from December 1 - 30, 2022.

GALLERY TAKEOVER

Feel This Way is a part of our Gallery Takeover program, a series of annual exhibitions that display the resulting works created through creative programs led by Ruth’s Table educators.  

SUPPORT RT

Ruth’s Table thank our generous donors for ongoing support. Your support is vital and every gift matters.

 EVENTS

Opening Celebration | Online
December 8, 2022 | 2-3pm
Via Zoom

Opening Celebration | In-Gallery
December 10, 2022 | 2-4pm
In-person at Ruth’s Table