Preserving Artwork and Creative Identity

Bancroft’s Burlington Adult Day Program has had to adapt to changes due to the pandemic. With those changes, Sonny Rimler, Therapeutic Activities Specialist, came up with an idea to preserve the artwork from his classroom and digitize it.

“We’ve had to be really adaptable over the last two years,” Rimler explained. “From upsizing and downsizing classrooms to moving between rooms altogether, we’ve had to be really selective with what we could take with us as we shuffle around the building. I wanted to come up with a way to display everything.”

Wanting to showcase the amazing talents of the individuals in his art classes, Sonny built a virtual portfolio, which became the new home to all of the artwork that otherwise would’ve ended up in boxes.

“I wanted a place for the art to live and be in one central location. It was really important for me to save all of it. So, the website became a great

way for the artwork to be preserved and showcased.”

Designed for Accessibility and Pride

The website “Therapy Through Creativity”  is organized by the various mediums used in class: pencil, paint, charcoal. Accessibility was also something taken into consideration while creating the site. The pages were designed to be easily flipped through for th

e best viewing experience.

“It’s so easy to be able to see everyone’s work and all of the different projects we work on in class,” Rimler said.”I also wanted to make it so the individuals could look at their work and feel proud of it.”

A Growing Platform With Endless Possibilities

Moving forward, Sonny would love to see the website become a central hub for all of the different therapeutic specialty work and for the talents of even more individuals to be displayed.

“A really great thing about the website is that it is a living document, so more and more work can be added into it,” Rimler explains. “As time goes on, we can start adding other disciplines’ work into it, as well! We can use the site for talent shows or virtual art shows. We can use it to showcase photos of dishes made in cooking class or videos of performances from music class; the possibilities are endless.”