During a 10-week internship as artist-in-residence at Otterbein SeniorLife in Granville, Velvet Sellers ’25 gave a lot of herself. She lived at the Otterbein campus, led workshops on photography and digital art, and organized creative field trips.
She was surprised at how much she got back.
Painting by Jane Heller ’49
Conversations with residents gave her glimpses into older times: growing up in the rapidly changing landscape of early Philadelphia, graduating from Denison in the 1940s, or hearing the stories connected to a proud collection of Easter eggs spanning multiple decades, each one a memory of a different chapter in the resident’s life.
With so many diverse personalities and life histories, the people at Otterbein offered Sellers, an English creative writing major, a wealth of stories she will be able to draw on in her own creative work. Her most cherished sessions were writing workshops, during which residents worked on personal memoirs to leave as a legacy for future generations. Some of the writing was preserved in print and published in their community magazine.
These conversations also led her to achieve the most challenging goal she had set for herself — overcoming her social anxiety. ”I have always had a hard time feeling like I could just talk in front of people,” she said, “whether it be one-on-one with a stranger or a whole room of people.”
The experience of connecting with the vibrant personalities at Otterbein and hearing stories of how they lived their lives “absolutely changed my perspective on things,” she said. “It really helped me overcome some of my fear.”
With the summer internship completed and living back on campus, Sellers will occasionally be invited back to Otterbein by some of her new friends. She’ll head down The Hill, into dinner and conversation.
“I genuinely formed a connection with so many people at Otterbein and I see a lot of them as friends and family now,” she said. “It was life-changing.”
