Monterey-Herald September 24, 2006
The art of aging
Documentary, book show older women 'still kicking'
By BRENDA MOORE*
Herald Staff Writer
Does art help people age artfully?

A documentary by a Pacific Grove filmmaker and the book project that sparked it seem to suggest the answer is yes.

"Still Kicking," a 32-minute film by Greg Young, offers portraits of six Bay Area women who have danced, painted, played piano and otherwise artfully and actively moved into their 80s and 90s and 100s.

It's been shown at several film festivals and in the Bay Area. On Wednesday it will have its local premiere at the Sally Griffin Active Living Center in Pacific Grove , with a second screening set for October in Carmel . Young will be at both events.
The stars of "Still Kicking" are among a dozen women Amy Gorman profiles in her book Aging Artfully."

Gorman, who lives in the Bay Area, has worked and volunteered with medical and social programs for the elderly and founded a nonprofit arts organization for children.
She said she was interested in exploring aging "in all its dimensions, especially the artistic," so she began interviewing women over 85 and chronicling their stories as part of an effort she called Project Arts & Longevity.

One of those women was Mary Beth Washington, a storyteller in Oakland who goes by the name Orunamamu, and that's how filmmaker Young got involved. Washington was the subject of Young's first documentary, "Do You Know Yellowlegs is a Storytelling Museum ?" Gorman and her friend and partner in her exploration on aging, Frances Kandl, saw the video and met Young.

"I talked to them and (their project) sounded interesting," Young said. So he asked, "Would you consider me documenting it?"

They said yes, so he began his own series of interviews with some of the women. Over six months, he shot about 40 hours of tape, then spent many more months editing and shaping it into the 32-minute film. It includes music composed by Kandl.
Young, who is 59 and retired as a design director in university relations at University of California-Berkeley, said his interest is in doing character-driven documentaries. This project fell right in line with that, he said.

"I am very intrigued with those qualities we develop as we get older," Young said. "I think this interest arose from documenting the storyteller, Orunamamu, the central character in my first film, an amazing women who has become a lifelong friend.
"She, and the other women as well, have been able to look behind the curtain, recognize life for what it is, and because of or in spite of that knowledge, carry on in such a way that, at least to me, reveals the best of what being human means. If I can reveal just a bit of that in my films, I feel very rewarded, and hopefully will have helped one or two others who are approaching their older years."

Young's film introduces six inspirational women:
• Frances Catlett, a painter born in 1908.
• Ann Davlin, a dancer and teacher born in 1910.
• Grace Gildersleeve, a rug weaver born in 1911.
• Lily Hearst, a pianist born in 1897. Hearst died in 2005, before the book and film were released.
• Madeline Mason, a doll maker born in 1902.
• Elsie Ogata, an ikebana artist born in 1912.

The film shows each of the women enjoying their art. Catlett works colors onto a blank canvas in a fashion that seems abstract, until a dancer clearly emerges. Gildersleeve quickly, efficiently braids and stitches scraps of fabric into an oval rug. Hearst passionately plays classical pieces, from memory, on her piano. Ogata turns what seem like a few random floral pieces into a lovely arrangement.

All the while they're revealing pieces of their long, interesting lives -- tales of fleeing the Nazis, of outliving their children, of passing along some of their talents to their grandchildren.

Their pasts are very different but Young found they all shared a resilience and a sense of purpose, a reason for starting each day. Art is an important part of it -- but not the only part for most of these women.

Hearst went to a senior center daily. She was an avid outdoorsperson, enjoying skiing and hiking until late in life. Until she was 105, she swam every day at the Berkeley City Club. She taught piano until her death -- but only to students over 70.
Catlett bowls twice a week, takes 40-minute walks most days and is part of a weekly five-hour Scrabble game.

Ogata, in her 90s, still tries to work two days a week at the family flower shop. She also does needlepoint and quilting.

Gorman, the author, said the jury is still out on whether art increases longevity but engagement in something is a catalyst.

"It doesn't have to be playing piano or dancing at age 90," Gorman said. "It can be gardening or thinking about Sudoku..."

She also believes optimism is a factor in longevity.

"They are all living right now, in the present, and they don't have time to dwell on negative thoughts," she said. Gorman recalled Gildersleeve's comment in the film that she doesn't think about bad times, instead telling herself "turn that off."

Gorman, 66, who works part time as a speech pathologist, is taking the lessons she learned to heart, sculpting, doing projects that are meaningful and thinking positively. She will appear at the Pacific Grove screening to talk about the project and sign her book.

Filmmaker Young is practicing his own art, working on two new documentaries about interesting people he's come across in Pacific Grove .
"I hope 'Still Kicking' is a catalyst," he says in a director's statement, "prompting us to the possibilities demonstrated by these women, that growing old surely is an opportunity we all can enter with anticipation."