Aged Artists Put Experiences, Memories on Canvas : Elderly Paint Themselves Out of Their Miseries

Luella Wolfe enthusiastically leaned forward in her wheelchair, spreading out a series of paintings depicting colorful scenes of Yosemite National Park and Oregon’s Mt. Hood.

“First I do the mountains, then the sky, then I add flowers,” said Wolfe of her successful formula for creating and selling landscapes at 102.

The Kansas native who recalls Indian attacks on settlers in the territory her family traveled to--now the state of Washington--says she never considered becoming an artist until she turned 97.

“I’m not able to travel, but I can paint my favorite places,” said the hospitalized woman, whose talent with watercolors hides two handicaps--a permanently broken thumb and impaired vision due to cataracts.

Cooperation With College

Wolfe is one of some 20 elderly patients enrolled in Hillhaven Convalescent Hospital’s innovative “Art With Elders” program developed in cooperation with Vista College in nearby Berkeley.

Unlike many programs that use art for therapy or “busy work,” the students with an average age of 85 are encouraged to build an art portfolio, frame their best works, and offer them for sale at special events and in the “gallery” decorating the hospital’s hallways.

“I teach people 80, 90 and 100 how to be artists,” said Mary Ann Merker-Benton, a Vista College art instructor who founded the program in 1979 for the nursing home run by National Medical Enterprises. “There’s a real seriousness about it. Portfolios are kept and they develop their own individual styles.”

Wolfe, who had never painted before, has sold dozens of her mountain scenes and seascapes at prices ranging from $15 to $40. One of her works won a blue ribbon at the Alameda County Fair and another hangs in the governor’s office in Sacramento.

Benton said Wolfe has been an inspiration to the staff and other patients.

“She’s got me doing acrylics so we’ve influenced each other,” Benton said.

Benton holds weekly art classes in the dining room of the hospital, with about a dozen patients usually showing in wheelchairs up to draw live subjects--from flowers and fruit to live roosters, rabbits and once even a cheetah from Marine World-Africa U.S.A.

“Some 10 to 20 people take part each week,” Benton said. “But I believe all 82 patients at Hillhaven are affected in a positive way.”

She said the activity of choosing subjects, color schemes and materials gives the elderly students a new sense of self-esteem and helps them to forget their miseries.

Non-Medical Function

“It’s a non-medical function within the middle of a medical facility,” she said. “It has nothing to do with being sick. It has to do with being well.”

One resident of 12 years, Ruth Atwood, 84, is legally blind but has been prolific at painting colorful flowers.

“I work fast,” said Atwood, who never painted until the program began. “It comes to me naturally.” At a recent senior arts festival, she won second place for a painting she priced at $15 titled “Flower in a Saucer.”

Another woman learned to paint with her left hand after her right side was disabled by a stroke. When she died, the art class held memorial in which all her works were displayed as a tribute.

Hospital administrator Margaret Boyd said the program has drawn attention nationally and that many of the elderly artists have testified about its positive effects at geriatric conferences and community events.

“It offers something different from the usual bingos, barbecues and birthdays,” she said.

Activity director Mary Lou Coles said the residents learn to use art to express their experiences and memories. They also find out that it’s never too late to develop a new skill.

“Art with elders works,” she said. “It touches many areas of the institutionalized patients life, bringing her in touch with a part of herself she once thought was lost. It restores confidence, self-worth and dignity.”

Wearing a bright pink blouse and dabbing brown stick-like figures under a blue sky, Annie Harvey, 99, flashed a big smile and an even bigger sense of humor.

Every time she turns in a finished piece, the woman born in Nashville, Tenn., in 1895 reminds the instructor that she can’t paint.

“I’m certainly not an artist,” she said. “I’m almost 100 years old and I’ll tell you, I still can’t paint a tree.”