This article was originally published on The Iris

When Brittney Giammaria, activities coordinator at the Veranda of Pensacola retirement community, first tacked printouts of paintings to the community bulletin board and began encouraging residents to come to her “art re-creation” photo shoot, she thought she’d get maybe four or five takers. She had spent weeks explaining the challenge, created by Getty at the end of March. She mentioned it to residents in her water aerobics classes and during happy hours—trying to sell them on the idea of choosing a painting and re-creating it themselves using props and clothing they already had. Giammaria had been searching for safe, socially distanced activities to help occupy the residents’ time, and this one would be fun, she told them.

On the day of the photo shoot, Giammaria put down a box of props and costumes, and spread around 25 printouts of paintings on a table in an event room, including Grant Wood’s American Gothic, Frida Kahlo’s Self Portrait With Bonito, and Leonardo Da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine. At first, only a few of the more extroverted residents let her take their photo. One gentleman selected Rene Magritte’s The Son of Man, so Giammaria gave him a face mask to wear that she had adorned with a picture of a green apple. Another chose Saturday Evening Post artist George Hughes’s illustration of a swimwear-clad boy playing the piano; he took a seat at the community piano wearing red swim trunks.