Montclairion Review

Senior female artists share inspiration
Montclair dancer, 89, among 12 featured artists,
musicians, performers profiled in book
The Montclairion, by Shelly Meron, CORRESPONDENT*
Getting older is not something people like to talk about today. But Berkeley author Amy Gorman still thought it was a great topic for a book.

Aging Artfully (PAL Publishing; $20) is Gorman's look at the lives of 12 visual and performing female artists between the ages of 85 and 105, an idea she came up with several years ago.

"I was in my early 60s at the time," recalled Gorman, who is 66. "I woke up one morning and decided I wanted to hang out with older women, particularly women artists, and see how the creative process evolved in older women."

Through friends and the Stagebridge theater in Oakland -- the longest-running senior theater company in the country -- Gorman found the women she was looking for. Over the next few years, she visited with each of them several times, getting closer and learning more about them as artists, and as people.

"I always loved hearing people's stories," said Gorman, a former social worker. "Then I got this rich treasure of stories. I didn't know what I was going to do with the information but I knew that I had to write it. Most of the women are in their 90s -- nobody else was going to do it. What was going to happen to their stories?"

Gorman said she was also looking for inspiration as an artist herself. She said she wanted to know how female artists stayed creative late in their lives.

"I was at a plateau with my sculpture at the time, and I wanted to figure out how to keep the energy, how to keep getting new ideas," she said. "I didn't get all of those answers, of course, but I got some answers."

The women Gorman interviewed were equally excited about her project.

"I thought 'Why not?'" said Isabel Ferguson, a Piedmont painter featured in the book who will turn 90 in November. "I thought it was a good idea and I liked her, and I liked her interest in us.

"If you try to put your life down on a few pages, it's certainly an experience."
The book, accompanied by a DVD and a CD of songs about the women, is also an attempt to redefine what aging looks like today.

"Older people are definitely stigmatized," Gorman said. "They're old and wrinkled. But these women love what they're doing. They love life. They have a purpose."

Having a purpose in life is what keeps many of the women Gorman interviewed engaged and happy. For them, painting, dancing, singing, acting and rug weaving and other art forms are ways to have a full life.

"You can't stay happy if you have nothing to do and just sit around," said Montclair resident Dorothy Takahashi Toy, an 89-year-old dancer who was also featured in the book. "You have to find something that makes you happy and keep doing it. There's no end to what you can do, but you have to like it enough to keep doing it."

Toy has been dancing since she was a young girl, and set off to perform in Chicago with a dance partner when she was only 15. Toy and her dance partner, Paul Wing, were known as the Chinese Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. She is still dancing today and even teaches ballet.

"Sometimes people think there's nothing more to do after you hit a certain age," Toy said. "Whether you're a dancer, pianist, a writer -- it doesn't matter how old you are as long as you feel well enough to keep going and not to give it up."

Some of the other women agreed that staying busy was a key component.

"Try to have something going that you have always loved to do, and keep doing it," said Frances Catlett, 98, of Berkeley who still enjoys painting. "They used to show the grandmother sitting in the rocking chair -- don't do that. Don't have a rocking chair in your room."

Ferguson believes that women who continue to create and are interested in what they do live fuller lives.

"It helps them live longer and makes life worthwhile," Ferguson said. "They live longer, happier lives. It's as simple as that."