KEEP PERCOLATING AND BE PRODUCTIVE!

by Jill Rumbley-Beam

There are people in this world who are productive even in their old age. You don’t have to sit down…percolate because you’re never too old to rock and roll. I’m going to talk about some people who did well in their old age.

Pablo Picasso (modern artist)-cover of the national geographic-died at 91 and the picture on the cover is him at 90. The article states he’s intense, provocative, captivating and a genius He was a Spanish painter, sculptor and stage designer. Picasso’s training began under his father before 1980. His parents encouraged him to be an artist. In 1897 his realism began to show in his paintings. His paintings are rendered in non-naturalistic violet and green tones. Then he started painting pictures which displayed analytical cubism. He would paint a lot of geometric objects. After the outbreak of World War one, he needed money, so he started a relationship with French-Jewish jeweler Paul Rosenberg. He met high society people and started hanging out with the rich. He met Igor Stravinsky, and he made several drawings of this composer Guernica, his favorite painting which shows human suffering and misery. One painting, a picture of his wife sold for 32 million dollars -she was 22 and he was 72, when he married her.

Grandma Moses-Anna Mary Robertson Moses (folk artist) She started working at 12 years of age as a maid. She began painting in earnest at the age of 78 an was often cited as an example of an individual who successfully gained her career in the arts at an advanced age. Her works have been shown in the US and abroad and have marketed on greeting cards and other merchandise. The New York times said of her…the simple realism, nostalgic atmosphere and luminous color with which grandma moses portrayed simple farm life and rural countryside won her a wide following. She would capture the winter’s first snow, thanksgiving preparations, and the oncoming of spring. She was a tiny woman with gray eyes and she had a quick wit. She created prints because of her appreciation for Currier and Ives. She married and had 10 children. Just like Picasso, her father encouraged her to draw, and it was his passion for her to paint that helped her achieve her dream later in life… to paint.

Angela Landsbury-she’s on Broadway now as the mother in little women. But mom and I saw her in a play on Broadway called Deuce. It was a play about two former successful tennis partners, now retired but reunited to be honored at a woman’s quarter finals match at the US Open. They reminisce about other tennis players to include babe Didrikson and althea Gibson, complaining about the way they dressed so scantily. The critics said it was a flimsy excuse for a comedy, but we got to see Angela Lansbury. Her big hit on Broadway was the musical Mame. She also played in the play the corn is green. And of course, the popular television show…murder she wrote.

Sarah Berndardt-French actress who never learned another language. She performed all over the world to see her in plays speaking French and people came from all over the world to see her even though she only spoke French. She also played male roles to include hamlet. She was called the queen of the pose and the princess of gestures. She came to America when my grandmother was a little girl in the 1900’s. She agreed to only play in Shubert theaters. She got to Dallas and there wasn’t a Shubert theater. So that’s when she pitched a tent at the fair park…she had to go on because she had no money. My grandmother saw her in the tent perform. She played the part of Tosca in the opera, Tosca. She had to fall out of a window and she missed the mattress and broke her leg and it was so badly broken, she strapped herself to a table to continue the play because she was broke. Sarah Bernhardt died at 79.

Tom Wolfe wrote 86 just finished writing the kingdom of speech which mother is reviewing and will bring to you next time. He wrote the movie the right stuff about NASA. The kingdom of mankind is about the creation of mankind. Mankind can speak and apes can never speak

Helen Hooven Santmyer-At 100 years old, she wrote a book titled And the ladies of the Club while she was in a nursing home. The story tells about how men were worried that women would get organized into clubs and start taking over. What are you going to do in these clubs. We’re just studying Shakespeare. Oh, that’s okay…we don’t want any women running our business.

Always strive to percolate and live your life to the fullest!