UMANG a unique talent platform for Senior Citizens created by Silver Inning Foundation

Has anyone ever wondered what goes on in the minds of seniors as they sit in a garden or on a swing in the garden as the watch the world go by? Surprisingly, much more enthusiasm to live their silver years fruitfully and happily. However, as life moved on, so did things become fast paced and suddenly "time" became the most expensive commodity to acquire from children. There began to mushroom organisations that reached out to seniors to help them channelize their time and experience. When I retired I too began to look for opportunities to do things that I had never had the time to during my work life. That's when Sailesh Mishra and Ramaa Subramaniam found me. Ramma, my old friend who having found purpose in her life to work for senior citizens reached out to me to participate and I did.

When I was invited to host UMANG, a platform to encourage 55+ seniors to showcase their talent organized by Sailesh's Silver Inning Foundation last year, I honestly did not know what to expect. How important it is to meet seniors of your age and what's more to get inspired is something I never imagined. The capability to dance and sing at 55+ and what's more express themselves taught me the true meaning of "abhi toh main jawaan hun". Of course, I  myself am an over-enthu senior citizen myself who loves doing a host of crazy things to keep me happily engaged but I must admit I was in complete awe hosting the event that day. The feeling of achievement and the pat on the back that I got elevated me to euphoria that day and every comment / appreciation I got on social media made me feel ten feet tall. It is then that it struck me as to how important such moments and events are for seniors like me.

Seniors need a platform to express themselves and if it is on a stage, then that's even better as it brings an added feeling of contentment and achievement. UMANG, of course is not a competitive event but what's an event without a bit of 'I can do it better' or probably 'as well as you' spirit.  I found, at UMANG seniors felt a great sense of motivation and pride in trying to outshine each other with their perseverance to perform.

Since year 2010 UMANG is sponsored and supported by Rotary Club of Nariman Point Mumbai and Rotaract Club of Rizvi Law College.

What can I say about Sailesh Mishra, the Founder of Silver Innings Group who conceptualized UMANG which today has become a much awaited event by senior citizens. Since  its inception in 2008, every year it sees more and more seniors wanting to participate and the event boasts of around 125 seniors performing to an audience of over 900 people. All I can say is that when such opportunities are made available, it just transforms the lives of so many seniors whose families then begin to sit up and take notice. I totally agree with Sailesh's mantra of  “Hum toh woh recycled teenagers hai, joh rewired hai not retired”. His dream of encouraging and providing seniors an opportunity to participate in such a journey is something to be thankful for. Seniors today are also not just sitting back because they grew up in times when technology was not a means of fun and time pass. They just need for someone to acknowledge their talent, life experiences and expertise.

That amazed look on their children's faces, a pat on back and a handshake to say you were awesome, is all that seniors want today........ and "UMANG" is that one of its kind platform, just around the corner every year, waving out to seniors to put on their dancing shoes and show the world what they've got.

Iam so excited, this year again I will be hosting UMANG on 16th April 2016, See you'll ......


About Writer: 
Hira Mehta
hiramehta13@gmail.com
Blog: http://crossleggedwithhiramehta.blogspot.in/
Write short stories, articles and blog; Freelancer - Hosting, VO and acting; Hon.Secretary of ARUNIMA, a women's forum; Looking for work behind the scenes in the entertainment industry and a Retired from ICICI Bank.




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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights. Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

CHINA: At 90, master holds 1st solo exhibition

SHANGHAI, China / Shanghai Daily / Art / April 28, 2012

"Contend"

By Wang Jie

PAINTER Zhang Gongque has never sought the limelight or pursued money and fame. He never held a solo exhibition in China. And he seldom sells a work of art, preferring to keep it at home.

Today, at the age of 90 and at the urging of former students, he is holding his first solo exhibition in China at the Shanghai Art Museum through May 4.

Sixty recent canvases are on display.

Zhang, a Shanghai native, was tutored by Wu Dayu and Lin Fengmian during his study at the National Art Academy in Hangzhou in the 1940s. The academy, known for teaching Western art concepts, nurtured Wu Guanzhong, Zao Wou-Ki and Chu Teh-chun, all big names in the history of contemporary art.

Unlike many of his peers, Zhang is very low-key and low-profile and he doesn't hob-knob with other artists, critics or gallery owners. He sells very few works and doesn't push to sell.

"I enjoy a private rendezvous with art," he says. "I enjoy the sunlight while painting in my garden. Art is something to be savored and I prefer to isolate myself with the outside world."

Early in the 1940s, Zhang started to pursue an abstract style and created a painting titled "White Wrapped by Dark." But during the "cultural revolution" (1966-1976), Zhang had to destroy many of his works to avoid physical attacks because of his bourgeois preferences.

He used a pair of scissors to cut "White Wrapped by Dark' into pieces but he kept the pieces, and in 1990 when he was invited to a joint exhibition in the United States, he retrieved the pieces and put them together to create a new work.

He stores his paintings at home, like treasures.

But his former students, all still admirers, organized the exhibition as they thought Zhang's art should be appreciated by the public.

"Zhang refuses fame and money, which is rare today on China's art scene," says Shi Jianbang, a noted art critic. "I am not only amazed at his veteran brushwork but his reverence and passion for art as well."

His subjects range from landscapes to animals and flowers, all rendered by implication.

He has been compared with the French Impressionists, but the artist sharply disagrees.

"I never, never think that my paintings derived a lot from Western art styles, my art originated purely from the traditional Chinese art style," Zhang says. "True, the medium of oil comes from the West, but in my eyes, medium means nothing, it's only a way to achieve what one wants to reflect.

Zhang still paints every day.

"Many people say that I appear younger than I am," he says. "Perhaps painting is my own way to build up my body and constantly keep my mind running."

Shui Tianzhong, vice chairman at the Art Theory Commission of the Chinese Artists' Association, says, "Zhang reveals the same rhythms that paralleled the great artists of his generation. In his latest works, free-hand writing replaces shaping and overlapping, which leads to a more spiritual and ideal level of art."

Copyright © 2001-2012 Shanghai Daily Publishing House. 

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UK: Lament for elderly whose wisdom is ignored

LONDON, England / The Telegraph / Culture News / February 13, 2012

Sir Andrew Motion's poem is a lament, a moving rebuke to a society which isolates and ignores its wisest citizens.

Sir Andrew Motion

By Matthew Holehouse


Sir Andrew Motion, the former poet laureate, has written a new poem lamenting the plight of Britain's pensioners - those whose experience goes unheeded and phone “never rings”. In ‘Better Life’, published today, Motion highlights contemporary society's failure to appreciate the “gift” of learning that the elderly long to pass down to younger generations.

Sir Andrew, who was poet laureate from 1999 until 2009, describes the poem as a “collage” built from interviews, overheard conversations and the thoughts of invented characters. In the 13-stanza work he introduces Richard, an old soldier and retired brewer who is “perfectly able-bodied thank you and also of perfectly sound mind”.

He asks: “What can I do for you? The chances are I know more than you about most things.”

“I landed on Gold Beach on D-Day then worked as a brewer.

“It was a useful life. Defending the realm, then making beer.

“Now I am waiting for my telephone to ring. It never does ring.”

A fisherman’s daughter from Brixham, now half-asleep in a care home, chides the reader: 

“Ask yourself this question. Is it only when you become like me when you will hear what I have to tell you?”

“I am living here among you and you pay no attention or decide what I am thinking which is not worth your attention.

“I am every single colour in the rainbow but you see no colour. You see the colour grey.”

Motion said the work also seeks to celebrate the “richness of memory” that the elderly enjoy. One elderly woman recalls the “beautiful shiny blue suits” of the mackerel her father caught, and her honeymoon to Llandudno.

Another narrator recalls family holiday, saying: “I am still the child that loves to arrive by night in a new place, then wakes to pull the curtains back on the sunlight pouring into a bay.”

Describing the poem, Sir Andrew said: “The idea was to create a portrait of age which is at once fragmentary, because everyone's experience is unique to themselves, and unified, because ageing involves sharing certain things in common.

“I hope the result is realistic about the difficulties posed by time and the passing of time, and yet also celebratory of certain experiences that time allows - the richness of memory, the sense of a narrative shape within a life,” he said.

The poem was commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as part of a campaign to encourage society to think differently about ageing.

The charity is running a five-year research programme to develop policies to improve the quality of care for elderly people. The charity is collecting first-hand testimony on the experience of aging, and has commissioned a series of photo portraits of centenarians.

“Old age is not about ‘them’, it is about all of us,” said Julia Unwin, the charity’s chief executive.

“The sooner we start listening to those with the experience, the sooner we can all start planning for a better life in old age. We need to adapt to this demographic and social change and to do so we need to listen to older people to understand what they want and value.”

Better Life
by Sir Andrew Motion

You think I must be asleep when you sit at my bedside

and well might I be what with the late afternoon hush

now the other residents have all retired to their rooms

but no I am not asleep although you could say uncertain

whether I am myself alone or the sum of those I remember

whose voices have become mine along with their destination.

*

I can say this at least. I was born a Brixham girl and dad’s ship

was the pride of the fleet so every day when they came ashore

I had my pick of the mackerel in their beautiful shiny blue suits.

But then again I was stationed on the flying boats. Wasn’t that

a lovely time? The way they came in very low over the harbour

and the deep green water lifted up to greet them or seemed to.

*

Ask yourself this question. Is it only when you become like me

that you will hear what I have to tell you? Make your mind up.

*

Here’s me when we were in Llandudno on our honeymoon.

I painted my toenails red. If you cared to look you could see

I still have my toenails red. I do this by myself with no help.

And that’s me dancing round the house – it was the fresh air

kept me going, without a single brown penny in my purse.

*

You see what I am saying. I am living here among you

and you pay no attention or decide what I am thinking

which is not worth your attention. I am every single colour

in the rainbow but you see no colour. You see the colour grey.

*

We have singing here at night or perhaps it has begun already.

Can you hear them singing? You would not believe how old I am

without feeling it. I tell myself that is because I have looked after

everybody. When I go to the doctor now I find the door is closed.

Do I knock? Once I’m inside it gets better. I say give me a minute.

*

I am Richard and I am perfectly able-bodied thank you

and also of perfectly sound mind. What can I do for you?

The chances are I know more than you about most things.

I landed on Gold Beach on D-Day then worked as a brewer.

It was a useful life. Defending the realm, than making beer.

Now I am waiting for my telephone to ring. It never does ring.

*

If you were looking this way you would see my right hand

stretching towards you with something I have to pass over.

When I open my fingers you must look at the gift carefully.

You may well not recognise it to start with although soon

you will see it is the very thing you can never do without.

*

Who are we talking about? My name is Peter and in one way

or another I was married to Steve for 57 years. Today I am alone.

The pain is very strong because nobody would miss me if I died.

It would affect nobody. I am Simon, aged 67. I am Liz, aged 82.

I am Helen, aged 72 and I do tatting and keep fit on Wednesdays.

I am Ali and I am a widow and I think if you don’t do anything

then God won’t do anything. This is Mehmet. And this here Geti.

I am Ron, and I enjoy a few boiled potatoes and a drop of broth.

I am not a lover of sweet things. I like simple bread and butter

and a bit of fish. My friend Rowena likes a slice of sponge cake.

*

Open the window and let me hear the geese flying across.

Can you hear what I am saying? Are you paying attention?

I love to hear the geese flying and know their ways home.

*

As for me, I was born in 1939 and all our people came down

from Staffordshire and Cheshire; I class myself a Traveller

not a Gypsy. When I was a boy we had a horse and wagon.

I had to make a fire and put the horses out to graze at dawn

then I had to bring them back close beside the wagon at dusk.

When dad bought a bus, which we called a freezer box, he sold

the horses. I stood and cried. I was a big lad. It was not the same.

You couldn’t smell the horses. Our people are in Magna Carta.

*

I had the life of Reilly. Now I have a serious illness and won’t last

but when I count my blessings at night I have a load of blessings.

I love God and want to die. What better thing is there to live for?

*

Is that you leaving now? Very well. As for me I have not done.

I am still the child that loves to arrive by night in a new place

then wakes early to pull the curtains back on sunlight pouring

into a bay I had never seen before where big pelts of seaweed

left to dry by the retreating tide and the dainty orange crabs

crawling across them and the pebbles are everything I need.

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2012
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights. 
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

USA: The New Yorker 2012 Anniversary Cover By 99 Year Old

NEW YORK, NY / The New Yorker / February 13, 2012

Alma Mitchell, 99, of Tumwater, Washington, has been declared as one of the 12 winners of The New Yorker Magazine's 2012 Anniversary Issue cover. The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism. Its first issue's cover in 1925 with dandy Eustace Tilley, was created by Rea Irvin. 

Read more about Alma Mitchell and her remarkable accomplishment in The Olympian
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Seniors World Chronicle Fascinating Face of Aging: 24/1/2012

       Peter Aalbæk Jensen (born 8 April 1956) is a Danish film producer. 

Photo Courtesy: politiken.dk

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Seniors World Chronicle's Fascinating Face of Aging for January 21, 2012

Swedish Poet Tomas Transtromer, 80, winner of 2011 Nobel for Literature, who
"gives us fresh access to reality through his condensed, translucent images." 
Two of his works - The Half-Finished Heaven and New and Collected Poems - 
were recommended by the Nobel Prize Committee. Reuters / The AtlanticWire
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DENMARK: Spang Olsen, Denmark’s legendary artist and author has died

COPENHAGEN, Denmark / Politiken .dk / January 16, 2012

IB Spang Olsen. Archive. - Foto: PER FOLKVER (arkiv)

SPANG OLSEN, one of Denmark’s legendary artists and authors, Ib Spang Olsen, has died at the age of 90 after a short illness, according to his family.

Spang Olsen was best known for his illustrations and not least for his work with Halfdan Rasmussen’s books of children’s rhymes. He was also an author of children’s books in his own right.

He received the H.C. Andersen medal for his illustrations in 1972 and has also received several prizes for children’s books from the Culture Ministry. In 2008 he was awarded the Gyldendal Prize for Children’s Books.

His funeral service will take place at the Marienborg Chapel on January 23.

Edited by Julian Isherwood

© JP/POLITIKENS HUS
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USA: Eve Arnold, Photographer of Bold, Illuminating Images, Dies at 99

NEW YORK, NY / The New York Times / Art & Design /January 5, 2012

By Douglas Martin

Eve Arnold, who lived in Britain since 1961.

Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos

Eve Arnold, who lived in Britain since 1961. 

Eve Arnold, who fell in love with photography after a boyfriend gave her a camera and who came to be regarded as a grande dame of postwar photojournalism for her bold, revealing images of subjects as diverse as Marilyn Monroe and migratory potato pickers, died on Wednesday in London. She was 99.


American-born, Ms. Arnold had lived in Britain since 1961. Her death was announced by Magnum Photos, the photography cooperative to which she belonged for more than a half-century. She was among the first women it hired to make pictures.

Ms. Arnold was a leading light in what is considered the golden age of news photography, when magazines like Life and Look commanded attention with big, arresting pictures supplied by adventurous photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gordon Parks, Robert Capa and Margaret Bourke-White.

Acclaimed for capturing celebrities in intimate moments after winning their trust, Ms. Arnold developed a particular rapport with Marilyn Monroe, the subject of a book of Arnold photographs. One image showed Monroe emerging from the black of a nightclub into the white glare of a spotlight with a smiling Arthur Miller, her husband at the time. Another showed her pensively studying her lines on location in the vast Western setting for the 1961 film “The Misfits.”

Foreshadowing the celebrity portfolios of photographers like Annie Leibovitz, Ms. Arnold captured Joan Crawford squirming into a girdle and James Cagney and his wife doing an impromptu dance in a barn.

Read the full story here

© 2012 The New York Times Company

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Seniors World Chronicle Fascinating Face of Aging: Dec 28, 2011

FASHION DESIGNER Sir Paul Smith, 65, was honoured at the 2011 British Fashion Awards for Outstanding Achievement. Paul Smith was 15 when he left school, got on his bike, and pedalled off to his first job at a clothes warehouse in Nottingham. Now, some 50 years later, Sir Paul has been awarded British fashion's highest honour, London's Sunday Telegraph has learned. Photo: Clara Molden / The Telegraph
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CHINA: No pause at menopause

BEIJING / China Daily / Life / December 9, 2011 

By Chitralekha Basu, China Daily

Author Xu Xi has portrayed Hong Kong, where she was born and grew up, as a backdrop and theme in many of her works. Provided to China Daily

A new collection of short stories from Xu Xi focuses on themes close to the author's heart -namely mature women, sex and Hong Kong. Chitralekha Basu reports.

Chinese-American novelist Xu Xi's new book is a collection of 13 short stories, titled Access, inwhich the distinguished academic, author of nine books and the editor of three anthologies about Hong Kong is largely concerned with middle age.

Her band of menopausal women - who appear as central characters in most of these tales - are often angsty and insecure as they teeter on the brink of losing husbands/boyfriends, jobs,security and the meaning of life. But they are also capable of rising above their situations -sometimes, inexplicably, reconciling with them.

For most of these women - often confident, sassy and powerful, even if they might have their unguarded moments - there's no pausing at menopause.

"Perhaps the stories reflect the fact that I'm 57," Xu says, in a phone call from Hong Kong. The woman, who "inhabited the flight path connecting New York, Hong Kong and the South Island of New Zealand" until about two years ago, is more or less stationed in Hong Kong now. That's to be close to her twin concerns - a 92-year-old mother suffering from Alzheimer's and a fledgling writing school focused on writing from Asia. 

"I'm around people nearing retirement age. I'm interested in what aging does to the body, mind and spirit," Xu says.

For some of her women protagonists, menopause seems to accelerate desire, and how! They love their husbands but sleep with their friends' husbands, without apology (in the story Anon).They take off for Europe to have clandestine rendezvous with their boyfriends who are married to someone else, but when the date does not show up, they take a walk down the back streets of Stockholm, reflecting on the way their lives have panned out (Iron Light).

There is a lot of sex, and it comes in various forms, sometimes violent, illicit and even incestuous.

"There's always a lot of sex in my novels," Xu says, laughing. "It's probably the reflection of aworld in which nothing sexual is held sacred anymore, the way it was before the coming of the Internet."

Her engagement with sexuality - which Xu says began with a curiosity to find out about unusualsexual phenomena when she was still quite young - has opened up newer vistas, pushing her to explore spaces in which desire blurs the lines between gender identities.

"What gender we are is not a very clear-cut idea anymore, physically or otherwise," Xu says. "We have allowed homosexuals to come out. Women are no longer just seenas baby-making machines.

"This new openness has changed our ideas of society.Now we can use sexuality as a tool to explore humanity abit more provocatively. It's one part of ourselves we're nolonger totally in control of."

In the story Lady Day, the protagonist's apparently aberrant sexuality is a "deformity" that sets off a chain of personal disasters - being disowned by family and abusedby bullies in a British public school - but is turned into a weapon, a source of power, later in life.

As a posh hermaphrodite prostitute who services business tycoons and Saudi princes in her plush apartment not too far away from Wall Street in New York, Lady Day lives lifeon her own terms, even as her high-profile clients take a tumble after a journalist runs an expose. She even gets herrevenge on the high school bullies.

The great thing about Xu's protagonists is that none ofthem ends up a loser, although they could easily have done so, as the situations they find themselves in arepotentially lethal.

In Crying With Audrey Hepburn, a danseuse past her prime is relegated to taking part in cheap striptease shows. She had married for love, but her dancer husband could notcope with the strains of having to prostitute his art and committed suicide. Her solitary existence is fraught withlonging as well as an understated sense of betrayal.

"But even she doesn't feel like it's the most terrible thing to have happened to her," Xu says.

"She's not unhappy with her life. There is a sense of being at peace with her state."

Xu's protagonists are as disparate as they come - amasseur, an MIT graduate-turned-gambling pro, a 75-year-old proprietor of a New York-based financial magazine trying to hang on to the old order while coping with the tide of new-age marketing strategies.

The settings vary, too. They shift from a sprawling house with an un-weeded garden on theeast coast of New Zealand's South Island to the opulently laid-out Plaza Suite in New York.Often, the setting becomes a character invested with a role.

Hong Kong, of course, remains the pivot. It's where Xu keeps coming back in her stories, just asshe does in real life.

Born to Chinese-Indonesian parents - a businessman and a pharmacist, who always encouraged her to write and indulged her curiosity about things - Xu grew up in Tsim Sha Tsui district.

Although the city has featured both as backdrop and theme in most of her previous works -Evanescent Isles, Overleaf  Hong Kong, The Unwalled City, Hong Kong Rose, Chinese Walls -Xu finds Hong Kong an inexhaustible repository of stories.

The most significant change since Hong Kong's reunification with the mainland in 1997, Xusays, is that "Hong Kong feels like it's lost its way. It probably needs 'access'".

Hong Kong is also something of "a cliche in the Western world", she says.

"It is associated with cheap plastic flowers from the 1960s. Whatever informs our image of places also misinforms our ideas about them. It's this difference that's interesting to watch."

For her, watching Hong Kong seems like a lifelong occupation.

Copyright 1995 - 2010 China Daily Information Co.
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Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

JAPAN: Famed Japanologist Keene gets museum in Kashiwazaki

TOKYO,Japan / The Asahi Shimbun / Asahi Japan Watch / December 5, 2011

People
By Koji Shimizu / Staff Writer

Donald Keene reads a book in the study of his home in New York. 

The museum in Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, will feature 

a faithful replica of his study. (Bourborn Corp.)

KASHIWAZAKI, Niigata Prefecture--Along with permanently moving to Japan, renowned Japanese literature researcher Donald Keene has brought the living room and study of his New York home with him, donating it to a museum here as the centerpiece of an exhibit on his work.

Keene, 89, visited Kashiwazaki on Dec. 3 to attend a ceremony to donate his vast collection of books and furniture, among other items, to the museum.

The 360-square-meter museum, the brainchild of Bourbon Corp., a leading confectionery based in Kashiwazaki, is scheduled to open in autumn 2013.

It will be housed on the second floor of the company's training center.

The museum will display Keene's donation of about 1,700 books, 300 records and CDs, and 100 pieces of furniture, apart from the living room and study, his base for more than 30 years to bring his study of Japanese literary works to the world.

Keene has been living in Tokyo's Kita Ward since September. He decided to acquire Japanese nationality and live in Japan for the rest of his life after the country was hit hard by the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake.

In the ceremony on Dec. 3, Keene said he believes the devastated Tohoku region will experience a miracle similar to the one that occurred in Tokyo, which was rebuilt into one of the world's largest cities after it was firebombed into charred rubble during World War II.

Keene, a professor emeritus at Columbia University in New York, is known for introducing Japanese literature to the world over the past six decades.

Ties between the Japanologist and Kashiwazaki go back to 2007, when Keene proposed an endeavor to revive an ancient puppet play accompanied by the samisen set in the city.

Local artists gave the puppet play performance in June 2009, for the first time in 300 years.

Bourbon said that Keene's proposal gave hope to the city's residents, who were still reeling from the devastating Niigata Chuetsu-oki Earthquake in 2007.

Copyright The Asahi Shimbun Company
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USA: Every slope is a puzzle for map artist

SHANGHAI, China / The Shanghai Daily / Art / December 4, 2011

His trail maps are as much a part of skiing as snow

LOVELAND PARK, Colorado
By Karen Schwartz

TRAIL map artist James Niehues has a strong dislike for uniformity and strongly dislikes computer-generated maps. Karen Schwartz talks to the American and discovers he may be the last artist of his kind.

If you've ever gone skiing at an unfamiliar resort without getting lost, chances are you have James Niehues to thank.

Jim Niehues, the Mapmaker,  painting mountain majesties

Photo by courtesy: jamesniehues.com


Niehues, 65, is the man behind the trail map. His hand-painted panoramas have been reproduced into millions of pocket-sized maps handed out by ski resorts in North America, Japan, South Korea, China, New Zealand, Australia, Chile and Serbia.

"His trail maps are as much a part of the sport as snow," said Greg Ditrinco, executive editor of Ski Magazine.

That's high praise for a fellow whose formal art training consisted of a "learn to draw" mail-order course, taken in ninth grade while home sick from school.

Niehues always wanted to find a job that "had a little art." After the Army, he worked as an offset pressman, an ad layout artist and a designer before contacting Bill Brown, who painted the majority of the ski maps in the 1970s and 1980s.

Niehues went to Brown looking for some encouragement, but left with a commission. Brown was moving away from maps and into video, and asked Niehues to take over painting an inset for a Winter Park, Colorado, trail map.

From his start in 1987 until today, Niehues has painted about 300 panoramas, mostly of ski resorts, but also of golf courses, hiking trails, resort property and tourist regions.

His style is distinctive. He paints from an aerial perspective, distorted if necessary to bring a labyrinth of runs and mountain faces into a single plane.

"That's why I've lasted so long doing what I do," explained Niehues. "Every ski slope is a puzzle to me; to turn all those slopes so you can get the best view."

Niehues works out of a well-organized basement studio in the modest house he shares in Loveland Park, Colorado, with his wife, Dora, who handles the business end of things.

To craft a map, Niehues researches his subject, checking satellite images on Google Earth, existing maps, blueprints and photographs. Then, whenever possible, he visits the resort, taking photographs from the air while being flown over at various altitudes.

"By the time I get down from the flight I know what perspective I can get to represent the mountain," he said. If he can't make the flight personally, he asks the resort to supply aerial photographs.

Niehues starts by providing the client with a couple of small sketches, followed by a large pencil on vellum drawing. The sketch time can take from a day to a week, depending on the size of the resort.

Once he gets the client's approval, he begins painting in gouache, an opaque watercolor, on a 0.75-by-1 meter illustration board. This method allows him to lift the color and update sections as resorts change over the years.

Small ski areas might require three days of painting, while large resorts require 10, depending on the number of trees. Regional representations can take up to three weeks.

Niehues licenses the image to the client, but he maintains the copyright. His most lucrative job was US$13,500 for a regional map, six years ago.

"If there were two really good artists in this business, we'd both starve," he said.

Niehues will sketch one resort while painting another, but he only paints one at a time.

"I tried doing several at a time in my early career. It was Oklahoma but they would end up looking similar and I didn't like that," he explained.

And that is what Niehues doesn't like about his nemesis: computers. He'll use a computer to adjust the color or perspective on a nearly finished map. But in Niehues' opinion, computer-generated maps lack any character.

"They can't do what I can do," he explained. "A computer-generated map is obviously computer generated. They have cloned trees; all of them identical."

Copyright © 2001-2011 Shanghai Daily Publishing House.
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

GERMANY: Christa Wolf, East Germany's Most Celebrated Author, Dies at 82

Christa Wolf was one of Germany's most significant postwar writers, one who chronicled life in the the communist East. She passed away Thursday at 82 and leaves behind a controversial legacy. She will be remembered as a great writer, but also for collaborating briefly with the East German secret police.

BERLIN, Germany / Der Spiegel International / Culture / December 2, 2011

Christa Wolf, one of Germany's most important postwar novelists and one of the few from East Germany to gain international literary fame, died on Thursday. She was 82.

Although widely praised for her contributions to German literature, Wolf's public image was damaged for not being critical enough of the former communist regime. It took another hit in the early 1990s when it was revealed that, for a period of nearly three years during the 1950s and 1960s, she had served as an informant to East Germany's feared secret police, the Stasi.

Still, Wolf's relationship to the East German regime was far from straightforward and she was spied on by the state for a far longer period than she served it as an informant. "Wolf was an enormously significant figure, regarded until 1990 as someone who carefully and delicately expanded the boundaries of what could be said in East Germany," Georgina Paul, an expert in East German literature at Oxford University, told Reuters.

Born in 1929 as the daughter of a merchant in the city of Landsberg, now the Polish city of Gorzów Wielkopolski, Wolf and her family fled west in 1945 to what would become East Germany. Four years later, Wolf, who was a committed Marxist in her youth, became a member of the Socialist Unity Party (SED), East Germany's Communist Party.

No Alternatives, No Place

Wolf first found literary success with her book "Divided Heaven," the story of a love affair shortly before the construction of the Berlin Wall. She established her reputation in literary circles after visiting West Germany and the Auschwitz Trial in Frankfurt and writing "The Quest for Christa T.," (1968) which explored the tension between the demands of society and the desire of the protagonist in the novel for individual development. Her 1983 tome "Cassandra," which explored the threat to peace and used the Homerian figure Cassandra to depict gender conflicts, became mandatory reading for the peace and feminist movements in both East and West Germany.

With works like the semi-autobiographical novel "Patterns of Childhood," (1976), the story "No Place on Earth" (1979), about an imagined encounter with Heinrich von Kleist, she also established herself as a contemporary historical figure.

"'No Place on Earth' is the expression of how I felt about life at the time. For me there were no alternatives, no place. I was no longer playing along in the GDR," Wolf later told SPIEGEL in an interview, describing her conflicted feelings about the East German regime. Of course people asked themselves "Shouldn't we leave," she said. But Wolf said she ultimately got to experience "one of the few revolutions in German history," and that it had been worth staying for.

If Christa Wolf's literature was deeply rooted in her experience living in East Germany, so too was the public's perception of her, particularly following the 1993 revelations of her connections to the Stasi. It was Wolf herself who made her Stasi past public, admitting to the Berliner Zeitung newspaper that she had served as a sporadic informant to the Stasi between 1959 and 1962 under the codename "Margarete." She then went on to make her entire Stasi file available in order to end any further speculation about its contents. The revelations had been particularly damaging because Wolf had previously written critically about having been under surveillance herself.

Carefully Monitored by the Secret Police

Her last work. In June 2010, Wolf presented her most recent book, "Stadt der Engel oder The Overcoat of Dr. Freud" at Berlin's Academy of the Arts. Wolf and her family were expelled from their home in what would become part of Poland after World War II. The family resettled in the eastern city of Mecklenburg. Wolf would go on to study literature at the University of Jena and the University of Leipzig.

Speaking to SPIEGEL in June 2010, Wolf said, "what bothered me, and actually made me angry, was that people focused on this single point and that they didn't see my development and that they didn't even think it necessary to find out what other files there were."

Indeed, 42 Stasi volumes show that Wolf herself was carefully monitored by the secret police. Later, she said, "there were extensive transcripts of telephone conversations (of Wolf's the Stasi had eavesdropped on). In contrast, there was this fascicle of my discussions with the Stasi, which dated back over 30 years, and that was almost all anyone wrote about. When I then, and I was the only person to do this, published my so-called 'perpetrator's file' in its entirety, not a single newspaper that had previously condemned me took any notice. … Nobody wanted to portray my own development, which led to me being observed (by the Stasi) during the 1960s and after. That stunned me."

Indeed, in 1976, Wolf became on of the co-signatories of the "open letter against the expatriation" of songwriter Wolf Biermann, who was kicked out of East Germany for his dissident positions. As a reprimand, Wolf's husband Gerhard was kicked out of the SED. Despite additional run ins with the SED leadership, the author remained loyal to the country. In November 1989, only a few days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, she publicly stated that she hoped for a new beginning -- a socialist one.

Not Much Time Left

Wolf herself had left the SED in June 1989 and became active in her desire to "create change from within the country" together with the people in the movement that would ultimately lead to the fall of the Wall that autumn. Afterwards, on Nov. 28, 1989, she advocated together with writer Stefan Heym and theologian Friedrich Schorlemmer and others for the continued existence of East Germany, saying it should not simply be taken over by West Germany. She advised people who wanted to leave East Germany to stay on in order to "create a truly democratic society." After numerous statements, speeches, open letters, readings and interviews, Wolf, who was attacked as an "advocate of socialism" and a "domesticated opponent" of the SED, retreated from daily political life.

In 2010, Wolf published her final novel, "Stadt der Engel oder The Overcoat of Dr. Freud," a book that also centered on the legacy of East Germany. The book primarily takes place in California, where the author lived as a guest at the Getty Foundation between September 1992 and July 1993. It was also during this time that her files were uncovered by the agency responsible for administering access to the Stasi's massive archive.

Prior to her death, Wolf lived in Berlin and also in the town of Woserin in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Speaking of death in an interview with SPIEGEL in June 2010, Wolf said: "I think a lot about death, and I am conscious almost every day that I do not have that much time left. As I write, I sometimes thought: So, perhaps you'll let me still write this one until it is complete."

dsl

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2010
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

USA: Using imagery to embrace aging

NEW YORK, NY / Getty Images / Blog / December 1, 2011


By Getty Images

The author of this post, Barbara Alper, was named as a 2011 Getty Images Grants for Good finalist. Her work has appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Time, Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal, and her proposal to partner with Green Team Advertising and Lifeforce in Later Years (LILY) along with her powerful imagery (an excerpt from her submission accompanies this post) impressed our Grants for Good judges this year.


Portrait of MARGE. Photo by Barbara Alper. Photo of Marge by Courtesy of Barbara Alper, 2011 Getty Images- Grants-for-Good finalist.



Marge at 90 with friend Sheila. Photo by Barbara Alper. Photo by Courtesy of Barbara Alper, 2011 Getty Images-Grants-for-Good finalist.



Marge at 88. Photo by Barbara Alper. Photo by Courtesy of Barbara Alper, 2011 Getty Images - Grants-for-Good finalist.


Aging. We’re all going to – if we’re lucky, some better than others. Yet we still can’t even come up with the right word for those who already have.

Senior, older, old, elder, elderly, mature. Our society, ads and publications are geared to the young, beautiful and hip, not toward old people. The prevailing attitude is that aging isn’t pretty, and yet there’s a large and rapidly growing aging population that doesn’t get much notice or attention. In pop culture, except for Betty White, old people are rarely represented as who they really are.

These are our parents, the people who raised us and helped guide us to become who we are now. I wanted to find a way to give back to them by helping our older people as they become frail and have a harder time getting by on their own. Seemed like the right thing to do.

In my neighborhood there are a lot of people aging in their homes, and who would like to remain at home as long as possible. These familiar surroundings help them feel stronger, vibrant, independent – all things that keep them alive, and that’s how they want to remain as long as they possibly can. There are, of course, circumstances that can make that impossible at a certain point, but in the meantime they need help to keep their dignity and remain independent. Many have families that live too far away to help while others have none.

As soon as I learned of a new volunteer organization that began in my neighborhood, I immediately got involved. It’s called Morningside Village. Each volunteer visits an older person once a week. Sometimes that means taking them shopping, to the drugstore, for a walk or just sitting with them and keeping them company for an hour. I visit a 93-year-old woman. She was 91 when I first met her and she was able to move about pretty well. That’s becoming more difficult for her now and she needs our help more than ever, but her positive attitude and words of wisdom are inspiring. Her appreciation alone is very rewarding.

I suspect that part of the reason I have an affinity for old people and am drawn to them stems from having two parents of advanced age. Through them, I had the opportunity to closely witness and photograph the transitions people go through in the process of growing old. I had always photographed them, from the time I began to seriously take photographs over 30 years ago. After my father died nearly 13 years ago, and my mother gave up her house and moved to assisted living, I decided I needed to photograph her and what life there was like, for her and her neighbors. Over that period, until her death at 95, I witnessed her go from the lively, funny, sweet, vibrant woman that she was to a woman who needed total complete care.

It’s my intention to keep photographing older people to help make them more visible to the public. We need to take notice and not avert our eyes when we see an old person on the street, and as a society we need to offer help when someone needs it.

Copyright © 2011 Getty Images.

Seniors World Chronicle adds:

About Barbara Alper

Barbara Alper lives and works in New York. Her instincts, her interests, and her sense of adventure dictate her style. She has photographed the famous and the not so famous, and she has traveled worldwide in pursuit of great photographs, including underwater for her series Sea Samba. The New York Times, Barron's, The Wall Street Journal, SmartMoney, Time, Newsweek,The Los Angeles Times, Business Week, Condé Nast and The New York Botanical Garden are just a few of the clients she has served and served well.

Exhibited in Japan, Europe, Scandinavia, Australia and the United States, her photographs are included in major collections around the world, among them The Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, FNAC, the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the International Center of Photography, The New York Public Library and The Brooklyn Museum in New York, as well as private collections. Her work is represented by Tepper Takayama Fine Arts.

Barbara Alper makes and sells photographs. It is her passion and her business.

Website: www.barbaraalper.com

E-mail: barbara@barbaraalper.com
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights. 
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

CHINA: "Chinese people are like a dish of sand, never really close together," says Ai Weiwei

BERLIN, Germany / Der Spiegel / International / November 25, 2011

Ai Weiwei

The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was detained for 81 days. He speaks about the changes in his life since the end of his detention in June and shows himself moved and surprised by a new culture of protest in his country.

'Shame on Me,' says Chinese artist and critic of regime

During recent days, Chinese regime critic Ai Weiwei  (born May 1957) seems to have experienced every possible emotion all over again: triumph and defeat, power and powerlessness. First there were the authorities, who applied pressure by issuing an ultimatum for the payment of a tax claim of around 1.7 million euros. And then thousands of Chinese transferred close to 1 million euros via the Internet. Last Tuesday, Ai made a payment of about 970,000 euros -- the amount stipulated as a condition before the artist could officially appeal the claims made by the tax authorities. Ai Weiwei has stated that he is not the legal representative of the firm Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd., which is registered in the name of his wife. Since Ai's release after 81 days in custody, SPIEGEL has been in frequent contact with the artist. Last week, the magazine was able to speak with Ai, who is now also accused of disseminating pornographic images by the Chinese authorities.

SPIEGEL: Last week you made a €970,000 ($1.3 million) payment to the bank account of the Chinese tax authorities. You consider it to be a kind of guarantee, a deposit. Do they consider it to be an admission of guilt?

Ai: I cannot speak for them. But I can tell you a lot about the pressure from the tax bureau and the police department on me. They really, really wanted us to pay. They tried to push us hard. They said: Pay something, you should understand. But they did not tell me what I should understand.

SPIEGEL: So the fact that you finally paid is a kind of victory for them?

Ai: Well, it was desirable for them but we had no choice. They said: If you don't pay, we will bring your case to the public security office, and then you will be facing criminal charges. By law you have to pay first, and then you can make an appeal.

SPIEGEL: Have you ever seen any proof of your alleged tax evasion?

Ai: No, and it is ridiculous. The only reason why they put me in jail is my involvement in politics, my criticism of the authorities. Later the excuse for my detention became my "tax problem." But internally they never told me anything about it. I don't want to underestimate their intelligence, but up to this day I think what they did is very stupid. In fact, they even helped me in an ironic sense. They gave me a chance to explain what is happening with this system. They provided such a platform for me.

SPIEGEL: Is there any chance that your appeal against the tax demand might be successful?

Ai: Almost zero. China never discusses any cases related to politics. They will always use other crimes to charge you with. That has happened since the Cultural Revolution and it is still happening. But the deadly weapon against this kind of totalitarian society is openness. So in my case we do everything very openly on the Internet. We let people know every detail, any little development. Once it is out there, everybody can make their own judgement. So we are holding a trial outside the court. I think that is fairness, that is justice, that is a civil society. Otherwise we call it an evil society because everything is hidden.

A nude portrait of Ai: "Jail is about nothing. Completely blank," he says. REUTERS / Zhao Zhao

SPIEGEL: Many Chinese showed an impressive degree of solidarity by giving you money. Many also added personal messages. Is there one that touched you in particular?

Ai: There were thousands of moving messages. One blogger said: Weiwei, we know who you are, we use our money as a voting ticket. Another one said: Mr. Ai, I am 13 years old, this is the proof that they can never beat us. People sent money from their first month's salary. Others said: This is my retirement payment -- take it. This is the money for my next pair of shoes -- take it. It was very important for me to see and hear those things. Normally you do not see the warmth, humor, care and generosity of the people while writing a blog. You just feel like you are walking in a dark tunnel and you feel alone.

SPIEGEL: Did you underestimate the Chinese people?

Ai: I did. Shame on me. I, and not only me, always thought, in modern history Chinese people are like a dish of sand, never really close together. But today I think a dish of sand is a good metaphor because now we have the Internet. We don't have to be physically united. You can be an individual and have your own set of values but join others in certain struggles. There is nothing more powerful than that. On the Internet, people do not know each other, they don't have common leaders, sometimes not even a common political goal. But they come together on certain issues. I think that is a miracle. It never happened in the past. Without the Internet, I would not even be Ai Weiwei today. I would just be an artist somewhere doing my shows.

SPIEGEL: In China, it is quite unusual for people to show their support for critics of the government so openly. Why do you think they are doing so this time?

Ai: Whenever there is injustice, there is tension. But in China it is very hard to release your anger unless you burn yourself or you jump from a bridge. In a society where there is no freedom of the press, it is difficult for victims to be noticed. Just take the example from yesterday: I had given a telephone interview to CNN. Then, suddenly, CNN was shut down for a couple of minutes. It was the first time I experienced that my television went totally dead. I realized: Oh my God, its because of me, this is crazy! Which nation would do that? Maybe Cuba, North Korea, China. But what do they want, what are they so afraid of?

SPIEGEL: So what is your explanation? Why are you so dangerous to them?

Ai: Truth, this is the greatest danger for this kind of machine. And I am fighting for truth. After 60 years in government they are becoming an underground party again, a secret organization. They never discuss things openly. They don't answer questions. They just give orders, mostly secret orders. But this is not suitable to their position. They have a party with 80 million members. They control this nation. China is the rising superpower. So why are they so shy? What stops them from speaking out? That is the question. Nobody can answer it.

SPIEGEL: Why do you think they are so focused on you?

Ai: I often ask myself this. Why did I become the No. 1 enemy of the state? During my detention even, they kept asking me: Ai Weiwei, what is the reason you have become like this today? My answer is: First, I refuse to forget. My parents, my family, their whole generation and my generation all paid a great deal in the struggle for freedom of speech. Many people died just because of one sentence or even one word. Somebody has to take responsibility for that. If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future. I started to ask questions. Over 5,000 students dead in the Sichuan earthquake. Who were they? The fire in the high-rise building in Shanghai that killed about 60 people. Who were they? I told them: Come on, just answer these very simple questions. As an artist, I am very familiar with how to show the details, how to transform them into a language people can understand. They know that the Internet is a strong force, unbearable for them.

Part 1: 'Shame on Me'

Click here to read: Part 2: 'Do They Want Me To Leave?'

© SPIEGEL ONLINE

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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights. 
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

JAPAN: Hokkaido roots spur woman to bring folk tales to masses

TOKYO, Japan / The Japan Times / Life in Japan / November 5, 2011


Missionary's daughter brings area's hidden Ainu culture, flavors to life in English

By KRIS KOSAKA
Special to The Japan Times

For Deborah Davidson, Hokkaido is not only home, it is a door to other worlds. As a child, she played with Ainu children and watched them care for the frolicking cubs of the "iomante" (bear ceremony). As a translator, she now focuses on bringing Ainu folk tales to an English-speaking audience.

A devoted fan of Ayako Miura, a famous novelist from Asahikawa, Hokkaido, Davidson also followed Miura's creative path around the prefecture to translate her historical novel "Kairei" into English under the title "Hidden Ranges."

As the cross-cultural adviser for the small coastal town of Setana in southern Hokkaido in the 1990s, she joined cultural circles and learned to paintetegami, hand-drawn postcards using traditional Japanese sumi ink andwashi paper. Building on those artistic skills, she now concocts original illustrated recipes, inspired by Hokkaido and Japanese cuisine.

Davidson, 56, suffers from severe osteoarthritis and other health issues, which have left her virtually housebound since 2005. Still, she has found another world through her many creative endeavors.

Deborah Davidson sits at her home in Sapporo, surrounded by some of  her published works and favorite books. Below: An etegami featuring the image of catfish is one of the series that Davidson posted on her blog following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. 

KRIS KOSAKA, COURTESY DEBORAH DAVIDSON

"Even though I hardly leave the house these days," Davidson says, "I feel like I am traveling all over the world, all the time, meeting many interesting people."


Click here to read more....

(C) The Japan Times
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

RUSSIA: The Artists Are Present

MOSCOW, Russia / Russia Profile / Culture & Living / October 11, 2011

The Artists Are Present

Abramovich Retrospective Gives Russian Audiences a Chance to
See Her Work for the First Time

By Andrew Roth - Russia Profile

You don’t walk into famed performance artist Marina Abramovich’s new retrospective at Moscow’s trendy Garage Center for Contemporary Art – you squeeze between two naked bodies, one male and one female, and emerge into a collection of Abramovich’s diverse creations from the past 40 years.

While Abramovich’s work has become well-known in the west for pushing the boundaries of performance art, her work is on display in Russia for the first time.

Marina Abramovich’s exhibition Artist is Present opens in Moscow.  

Marina Abramović (Serbian Cyrillic: Марина Абрамовић; born November 30, 1946) is a New York-based Serbian performance artist

On Friday, she and New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Chief Curator at Large Klaus Biesenbach held a special press tour of the exhibit before its opening in Moscow.

On Friday, 40 young performers dressed identically in green jumpsuits sat behind Abramovich, who spoke at a press conference about the importance of audiences in performance art. “This work is all about the audience, about sharing the energy between themselves and the performer,” she said.

From the very first steps into the retrospective, suspended, contorted and frozen bodies, often naked, assault the viewer and set him on edge. “I still remember when I saw Marina Abramovich’s piece Luminosity for the first time,” said Biesenbach, in the first room of the exhibition. In Luminosity, which was first presented in 1997, Abramovich (played by an apprentice at Garage) is suspended on a white wall in a square spotlight. Her naked body is splayed out, arms held horizontal and legs separated by a small seat that the performer sits on.

“At first I thought it was a slide projection, but then I saw the body move,” continued Biesenbach during the tour. “Then I had thought that it was a movie protection. But it was only when I came up to the wall itself and saw that the body had depth that I said ‘Oh my God, that’s a person there.’”

One of the basic difficulties of presenting a retrospective of the artist’s work is that each piece is physically tiring for the performer. “Of course it’s not the same as seeing these pieces in the original,” Biesenbach told Russia Profile. “In the end it’s a different experience. But this is the standard right now and we thought it was the best way to give a look at Marina’s work.”

Courtesy:  SOI

Some of the pieces were too extreme for the team to recreate. In Rythym 0, which Abramovich performed in 1974, she gave herself up to the audience for a period of six hours, providing them with chains, roses, nail polish, scissors, and even a gun and a single bullet. The crowd responded enthusiastically, and one man even placed the loaded gun to Abramovich’s temple before she finally “woke up.” In place of the piece, Garage exhibits a slideshow of the original and a table, covered with the objects that she used in the original showing.

Much of the retrospective focuses on Abramovich’s relationship and joint work with Ulay, her partner of 12 years who played an integral role in many of her most iconic pieces. In the third room of the exhibition, the couple’s van, where they lived for several years, is parked in the center, as video pieces by the artists play on the walls surrounding it. Among them is a video of each of them walking half the length of the Great Wall of China to meet in the center, when they split.

The culmination of the exhibition is a recreation of Abramovich’s piece “The Artist is Present.” In its debut at MoMA in New York in 2010, Abramovich sat for eight hours a day (ten hours a day on Fridays she’ll remind you) across from anyone with a desire to do join her. In the exhibition’s final room, a table and two chairs are placed between the walls, covered with slides of the artist and her visitors during the piece’s first showing. This is Abramovich’s sole performing role in the event. In 2010, one man with dark features and a mustache returned seven times to sit across from Abramovich, and the event spawned a Facebook group called “Marina Abramovic made me cry” complete with pictures of different visitors tearing up in front of the famed performance artist. Even Ulay, who hadn’t seen Abramovich for more than 20 years after they broke up, came on the first day to sit with Abramovich.

“At that moment, Marina broke her rules a little,” said Biesenbach. “She reached her arms across the table for the reunion.”

While both the artist and curator were positive, whether Russians will also be happy to squeeze between naked bodies and sit for hours across from the artist remains to be seen. “America is a more prudish society,” said Biesenbach “and the reaction that we saw from the visitors there was incredible. We think that the reaction to this exhibit in Russia will be even more incredible.”

© Russia Profile, 2011

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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

GERMANY: Seniors in Germany taking up graffiti

TORONTO, Ontario / Digital Journal / Arts / September 2, 2011

In The Media
Abigail Prendergast

Senior citizens in Germany are taking up an art form that probably isn't what most expect it would be. Gone are the days of knitting and crocheting as these older generations trade in their needles and hooks for cans of spray paint for graffiti painting.

Graffiti found on a German street


The country known as the Fatherland is seeing a whole new group of people taking up street art - in particular, graffiti. The people who are showing interest in it are not of a youthful, angst-ridden generation either. In fact these individuals are old enough to be their parents, and in some cases even their grandparents.

When 59-year-old Berthild Lorenz was contemplating signing up for a creative writing class, she was confused by something: The informational flyer she read about the course "mentioned writing on a wall." Nevertheless, Lorenz decided to register for the class.

When she was already underway in the course she found out that she found out that it wasn't your typical form of creative writing being taught. It was a literal writing on walls - it was graffiti.

"When I realized that it was a course about that stuff people smear on all the buildings and walls, the first thing I thought was 'I can't stand that mess!'" Lorenz said to Spiegel Online. She initially wanted to get out of the class. "But then I thought, 'I'm already here, I might as well stay.'"

Lorenz is just one person among many German citizens over the age of 50 who are being enlightened about and learning the art of graffiti. Being "encouraged by courses targeting older generations," these participants - some as old as 80 - aren't what most would think of to fit the profile of graffiti artists. A lot of these people have never before even wielded a can of spray paint.

Graffiti, which has been around since the days Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, has been seen as either art or vandalism. On one end, it is a means of expressing oneself using spray paint as the chosen medium. On the other, it is regarded as a desecration of public property that is done by people who have no regard for the well-being of society.

Stephanie Hanna, an artist based out of Berlin is one of the people who has organized graffiti workshops for seniors according to Spiegel Online. "Many older people regard graffiti as vandalism," she said. "But that is changing as people start to see that it has artistic value."

Over the last few years, graffiti and other forms of street art have been regarded more so as a creative medium as opposed to the works of angst-ridden teenage vandals. Paintings by the elusive British street artist known as Banksy are now worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Hanna "experienced that popularity first hand" when she commenced her "Senior Street Art" endeavor in 2005. The artist had only pictured the program to be a short-term initiative, but the high demand for such workshops had her offering them up until last year.

All across the German nation, initiatives like this one are encouraging the country's older people to utilize graffiti as a means of self-expression. A group called the Mosaik Kreis, which tailors to the activity of senior citizens and is based out of the northern German city of Marl, grabbed the attention of the local media this past spring when its participants "picked up spray cans for a graffiti activity day." Jutta Hinz, who is a co-manager of the collective, arranged the event after finding out about a graffiti project aimed at engaging young people who are uninterested in their studies.

"I thought if graffiti can help motivate uninterested teenagers, then maybe it can also motivate seniors," Hinz told Spiegel. "It's important for them to stay active."

Hinz contacted the organizer of the youth group who then spent a day with Mosaik Kreis and created graffiti art with them along with one of the young graffiti artists.

While the project was mainly a success, Hinz confesses there were some "bumps in the road." "Some of the seniors were bothered by the spray paint -- they kept saying how bad it smelled."

In Tübingen, street artist Dirk Ridder (also known as Mr. Sufa) offers his own annual graffiti course for "seniors." The term "senior" is used loosely as the course is aimed at people just over the age of 30. The 43-year-old Ridder works as a social worker during the day, has been luring older generations to his courses since 2009. With flyers reading "Too old for graffiti? Never!" Ridder's initiative was so successful that he is planning another go-round with the course this fall.

The Célestins Theater in Lyon France

It would seem that self-expression with a spray can is beneficial to these people's health as well. Dr. Jennifer Anders, a research assistant at the Albertinen Hospital's geriatrics clinic in Hamburg, isn't at all surprised by the movement. "The stereotype of a lonely grandmother in a pink cardigan who only plays canasta is outdated," she told Spiegel Online. "Today's aging population came of age in a different time -- they grew up with the Rolling Stones and some are ex-hippies."

Older people who take part in these graffiti courses can benefit greatly both emotionally and physically, Anders said. She does warn that these seniors must be in a fairly good physical shape to start however. "The social setting of group courses can benefit retirees who lack daily personal contact through the workplace or those who have lost a partner, for instance." Those emotional benefits are just the beginning too.

There are also many advantages graffiti gives seniors physically, Anders said. "Graffiti is an activity that requires a lot of movement, like bending and stretching. It can also potentially strengthen hand-eye coordination."

The generational exchange advertised by several senior graffiti courses can also be beneficial, said Anders. There is a desire to bridge the generation gap and it is that longing that drives people like Jutta Hinz and Stephanie Hanna to go forward with their senior graffiti courses. "Seniors often have this negative attitude about 'the young people these days,' while young people often feel disconnected from their elders," Hinz pointed out. "We wanted to facilitate communication."

While the senior graffiti courses aim to keep their classes - as well as the people - within legal boundaries by restricting spraying to large canvases or public places which they have secured rights to, not all Deutsche seniors are keeping themselves within such limits.

Walter F., also known as OZ, is renowned in Germany "for the smiley faces and other signature doodles he sprays around Hamburg." There are about 12,000 of the 61-year-old's works that can be seen in the city, but the artist has been sought after for his spraying and even sentenced to 14 months in jail on 11 counts of property damage back in July. The German press has followed OZ's spraying endeavors for over a decade now and they affectionately refer to him as Hamburg's "Graffiti Oldie."

While most participants in the classes of Jutta Hinz or Stephanie Hanna come in as complete graffiti novices, some do take after OZ - a graffiti veteran - and utilize what they learned in their courses in order to transfer it not-so-legal public properties and spaces.

Hanna did confess that she does see the work she taught in her workshops plastered on the walls of the streets of Berlin. She said it would seem that one of her former students or another had "taken to surreptitiously bringing what he or she learned in class to the city streets."

One of Hanna's former students, Berthild Lorenz is now taking what she learned in the classroom and plugging it into work in the streets. Although unlike OZ Lorenz does it all within legal limits. This time around she comes as a teacher, utilizing the medium of spray paint to open up channels of communication between her generation and the younger people.

Lorenz - with the assistance of a young volunteer - was able to secure the rights to an old, rundown former dwelling by Berlin's Orankesee lake. She hopes to teach local youth basic spraying techniques and get the house painted with their help.

Projects like this are a far cry from what Lorenz grew up with. Growing up in communist East Germany, where things such as graffiti were "out of the question." Between the huge emphasis on public order and extreme difficulty getting hold of the required materials, there was little, if any, means to express oneself in such a way. This way of life came to a screeching halt in 1989, when "the Berlin Wall came down," Lorenz said. It must have been like it was coming out of nowhere as she recalls that, "suddenly everyone was spraying everything."

The movement is even being recognized elsewhere including being featured in an article on About.com.

It is not only being praised not only a potential closer of the generation gap, but it is also promoting the added physical and emotional health benefits mentioned earlier.

While Lorenz does have a hobby more so on the hip end of the spectrum than most 59-year-olds, she does share a common sentiment with her senior peers. With her own youth brought to mind, she told Spiegel Online simply: "I think today's youth need to take advantage of the opportunities they have."

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