Creativity, of all types, is a recurring theme in the stories of our guests.
Master storyteller, Advocate Margaret Burk, episode #115, believes in the power of story, not only to entertain but to touch the heart, spark the imagination and embolden the spirit. We couldn’t agree more.
The very premise of Women Over 70 is to share the voices of our guests as they tell their stories on our weekly podcast. In doing so, they enable listeners to question, consider, express and give direction to their own aging.
Our podcasts are divided into categories to make it easier for listeners to find topics that interest them. Expressive Arts was a natural category to include because so many of our guests are storytellers. As we listen to their stories we see that their art offers insight into who they are and how they see the world. To our delight, numerous storytellers and artists of all kinds have found their way to Women Over 70.
Gerda Meyer Bernstein, internationally renowned installation artist, Ep. #32, was 97 when we recorded her interview. Hearing her describe her art transports the listener to a realm that is outside most people’s experience. Gerda’s lifelong commitment is to create art that bears witness to human experiences of conflict, disruption, loss, prejudice, and violence. We were fortunate to visit her studio and see several of her large-scale installations come to life first-hand. Gerda’s art expresses her keen eye and deeply-rooted political points of view.
“My art is a projection of things I believe in—climate, reproductive rights, aging women. Coming of age in 1960 was a time before birth control and the pill were legal.” – Karen Rechtschaffen
Perhaps Karen Rechtshaffen, Ep #17, surprised us the most. At 78, she related, “My art is a projection of things I believe in—climate, reproductive rights, aging women. Coming of age in 1960 was a time before birth control and the pill were legal” and, as Karen notes, “before having sex was ‘legal’ for women.” With candor and humor, Karen reveals provocative perspectives on her experiences of making art, care-taking of an older husband, and aging. And, Karen suggests there is another reason for creativity: “Creative expression can be a great escape from boredom”.
Did you ever sit in class as a youngster and draw amoebas of all sizes while listening to your teacher lecture? Some might have called it doodling – an activity designed to relieve boredom, but it certainly qualified as creative expression. The best part was drawing in lines so you wound up with tiny squares that you very precisely, one square at a time, then colored in. The result was a pretty impressive, colorful abstract drawing.
Expressive arts is so much more than painting or sculpting. Writing poetry and songs, playing a musical instrument, designing scenery for a play, singing in a choir – almost any activity that gets you out of linear thinking and frees your brain to reset and restore balance qualifies as creative expression.
Ideation is creativity in action and is regularly used in business and school settings, as Chris Hauri explains in episode #54. Groups of workers come together and dream up new and better processes, systems and services. Often, innovation is the result. For sure, the activity fosters a community of creative thinking that then spills over into all aspects of work.
Our expressive arts category, which you can find here:
https://womenover70.com/expressive-arts/ includes 12 women who express their creativity in the form of jazz, acting, storytelling, screenwriting, memoir writing, poetry and holding open mic events. Dr. Marie Kisiel, at age 91 says, “Creativity is the theme that I integrate into my mentoring, teaching and writing.”
As you can see, there is no age limit on expressing yourself. In fact, not to express yourself is to leave part of you unknown. Women Over 70 is dedicated to the belief that sharing our stories shatters the myth that women become irrelevant as they age. Our guests are evidence that irrelevance is a myth.
