While pinochle players sat around their card tables at Senior House on Thursday mornings, oil painters were hard at work at easels in a private room. I was a new art teacher at Senior House and was told works would be displayed at an annual art show held in the lobby with ribbons awarded to winners of the competition.
I soon understood there was a pecking order with these delightful seniors. They looked down on non-winners of whom I discovered, Ida who was 92 years of age, was one. When the others chatted about their previous success stories, Ida leaned over and sadly whispered to me, “I have never won a ribbon.”I smiled at her and hoped she saw the hope in my eyes.
“We’ll see,” I said softly.
My method of teaching is “I point. You paint.” So Ida began painting a canvas of bleeding hearts that she had planned on sending to her nephew and his wife who were missionaries in a far-off land. She painted slowly and sometimes had to correct her painting, but I pointed and she kept on painting.
It was hard to fight back tears on judging day when I walked into the lobby and saw Ida standing beside her painting. Her face beamed and her eyes twinkled.
“I won first place!” she said with pride.
Her hard-won ribbon would accompany that painting of bleeding hearts to a far-off land.
In later months a reporter asked her for a comment about her years and her outlook.
She spoke for many of us when she said, “Art is the joy of my life.”