The Alzheimer’s Poetry Project Meets Cowboys Real and Imagined
New Mexico History Museum
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 14, 2013
MEDIA CONTACT
In the hallowed tradition of campfire tales and cowboy poetry, the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project holds a special session at the New Mexico History Museum on Friday, June 21, 10–11 am. People living with dementia, their family members and the general public are invited to participate in performing and creating poetry inspired by the new exhibit Cowboys Real and Imagined. Poet Gary Glazner, founder and executive director of the Alzheimer's Poetry Project, will lead the session.
The event is free by reservation, but limited to 30 participants. For more information or reservations, contact Gary Glazner at (505) 577-2250 or gary@alzpoetry.com.
The Alzheimer’s Poetry Project performs and creates poetry with people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia with a goal of nurturing their creativity and sparking memories. In 2012, it received the MetLife Foundation Creativity and Aging in America Leadership Award in the category of Community Engagement. The National Endowment for the Arts listed it as a “best practice” for their Arts and Aging initiative. Last year, the APP produced an exhibit that shows people living with dementia participating in the dynamic creation of dance, music, poetry, storytelling, and their original artwork. Dementia Arts on Capitol Hill took place with the support of U.S. Sen. Tom Udall. In addition, APP has offered programming in Chinese, German, Hmong, Hebrew, Korean, Spanish, and Yiddish. In 2010, the U.S. Embassy in Berlin funded a pilot project for the APP in Germany, which inspired the U.S. Embassy In Warsaw to fund a pilot project there in 2012. To date the APP has held programming in 20 states and served over 15,000 people living with dementia.
The Alzheimer’s Poetry Project is funded in part by the Santa Fe Arts Commission, New Mexico Arts, a division of the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Poetry Foundation. For more information, go to its website, http://www.alzpoetry.com/.
Cowboys Real and Imagined explores New Mexico’s cowboy legacy from its origin in the Spanish vaquero tradition through itinerant hired hands, outlaws, rodeo stars, cowboy singers, Tom Mix movies and more. Guest curated by B. Byron Price, director of the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West at the University of Oklahoma, the exhibit grounds the cowboy story in New Mexico through rare photographs, cowboy gear, movies and art. It includes a bounty of artifacts ranging in size from the palm-sized tintype of Billy the Kid purchased at a 2011 auction by William Koch to the chuck wagon once used by cowboys on New Mexico’s legendary Bell Ranch. For more information about the exhibit: http://media.museumofnewmexico.org/events.php?action=detail&eventID=1421.
The exhibition is generously supported by the Brindle Foundation; Burnett Foundation; Rooster and Jean Cowden Family, Cowden Ranch; Jane and Charlie Gaillard; Albert and Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation, Houston; Candace Good Jacobson in memory of Thomas Jefferson Good III; Moise Livestock Company; Newman’s Own Foundation; New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association; New Mexico Humanities Council; Palace Guard; Eugenia Cowden Pettit and Michael Pettit; 98.1 FM Radio Free Santa Fe; and the many contributors to the Director’s Leadership, Annual Education, and Exhibitions Development Funds.