Local seniors help create mosiac artwork for Beaches Sandbox on Queen Street East

By GEORGIA LOOMAN

When Mary Eckhardt first spotted the community mosaic she helped to design and create mounted on the wall in Beaches Sandbox on Queen Street East, she was stunned. 

“I wasn’t expecting it to be on the wall already,” she said. “When I walked in and came out of the elevator, [I said] ‘Oh my god, it’s there!’”

Eckhardt, along with 15 other seniors, was a participant in the Mural Routes’ Piece By Pieceprogram at Beaches Sandbox community centre, funded by the New Horizons for Seniors Program, that took place earlier this year.

Led by local mural artist Cristina Delago, seniors in the program learned about the history of mosaics in Toronto and then created their own panel to add to a larger mosaic mural.

“Each panel that we do, you can feel (and) you can see that everyone is really doing their best,” said Delago. 

All materials for the mosaic were reused, recycled or upcycled, and Delago encouraged participants to bring in their broken dishes to use. 

For Eckhardt, who lives alone, the program also provided a feeling of community that she had lost when she retired. 

“You’ve got to have those social connections (as a senior) or you’re going to lose function,” she said. “It’s important for seniors to be able to connect. Otherwise, you’re going to lose a lot of your interaction abilities.”

Programs such as Piece by Piece are vital to the community because they help to combat social isolation within the senior population, according Samantha Little, programming manager at Beaches Sandbox.

“Beaches Sandbox is committed to offering accessible experiences that just really bring people together, and that build that sense of community through creativity and well-being. Our vision at the centre is to create a happier, just more connected community, and this program really embodied that,” she said.

Little noted that a key reason for the program’s success was that it was both physically and financially accessible to seniors. Beaches Sandbox is equipped with elevators, braille signage and automatic doors, and the program was offered free of charge, an important factor for seniors on fixed incomes.

“We can’t all afford $1,200 for a Taylor Swift concert,” said Eckhardt. “To me, these are affordable things to do and they’re interesting. And in the process of me doing all these things, I’m learning a lot of history about Toronto.” 

Seniors also learn a new skill through the program, said Delago.

She described the classes as being interactive and tactile, where participants are required to use some physical force to break tiles. This could include using hammers or grouting, which is the commercial installation of tiles. 

Now, when she is standing in the Beaches Sandbox stairwell, Little said seeing the piece is a “huge highlight” of her day.

“It has just brought tremendous life to that wall and it’s really a conversation piece as well,” she said. “Every time you look at it, you see something different. The amount of detail that went into these pieces is astounding.” 

Featuring the word ‘Sandbox,’ the mosaic is made up of 15 panels that depict different scenes and a connecting wave. The theme is focused on “creativity, connection, and fun,” according to the Beaches Sandbox website.

Little said that one of the biggest takeaways from the project is that creativity doesn’t have an age limit. 

“The seniors in this program really proved that curiosity, passion and that kind of artistic expression really stay with us regardless of how old we get,” she said. 

“So we hope the participants walk away with that renewed sense of confidence and belonging and just know that they’ve created something beautiful and lasting within their community.”

For information on programs at the Beaches Sandbox, please go to https://www.beachessandbox.com