3 Bay Area Elder Women Artists
and
10 questions
Documenting and recording the stories, laughter, and wisdom of three Bay Area elder women artists.
What is our world without the invaluable stories, perspective, and joy of our elders? The role of elders in society has long been significant, with their position being one of respect and gratitude. Village explainers, oracles, history recorders-- all positions of great importance-- exercising skills that must develop over the course of one's life. But in recent times with political and economic interests dominating the conversation, our elders' voices have been silenced and worse, forgotten.
In the U.S., aging populations number 39.5 million, a large figure despite being the lowest growth rate of aging populations over the last century. However, this is about to change; it is expected that with the aging of the boomer generation, that number will easily double over the next 10 years. In a time where it is becoming more and more common to displace elderly populations and discontinue life-saving community efforts for survival, it is now even more important to record and document their stories.
How will we as a society preserve not only the quality of life of these individuals, but the wisdom, stories, and lessons that they have as well? It is my opinion that in order to prosper as a society the voices of everyone must be heard and the wisdom that older generations reveal about our human nature is a valuable resource to draw upon when thinking about our philosophical and epistemic dilemmas.
In this project I focus on the voices of elder women, who are often a neglected side of the story, and more specifically, elder women artists in the Bay Area-- a group that is especially keen and articulate of their environment and the emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual knowledge they have gleaned from it.
The resulting interview is an amalgam of our conversations we had over the course of the three interviews, contrasted with my own visual recordings sourced throughout the years. I believe this visual union is a fitting metaphor for the sensory experience I have when talking with my elders. Specifically the emotions I swim into when I think about the infinity mirror of time, which I am always reminded of from elders-- that all moments are happening simultaneously, each person united in a cosmic slurpy of moments, neither the wave nor the particle but all of it everywhere, all at once-- and through it all I'm guided by the visual aesthetic of the perfect slices of human moments I deliciously get to experience. My recordings from 6 years ago somehow perfectly balance what someone I just met has said-- this is the infinity mirror at play.
I ask each of the women the same 10 questions and have included each of their answers chronologically according to the order of questions. The questions were chosen based on a range of personal curiosities and are as follows:
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What’s your name and where were you born?
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What did you eat for breakfast?
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What did you want to be when you were a kid?
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What’s one of your favorite memories from childhood?
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What environment invokes glee?
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What is your favorite smell?
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Where do you find your materials for art making?
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How much of art making is dependent on collaboration for you? What is the exchange that happens between audience and artist?
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What would you tell your younger self?
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What advice do you have for women artists today?
I became interested in researching this matter after a familial dispute broke out amongst my family where half of my family wanted to put my grandmother in an old folks home, and the other half wanted her to move in with my family. Regardless of where you stand on your moral beliefs on end of life care, it is a fact that majority of elderly women live alone until their deaths. How can we glean from their wisdom if no one is there? I then began to think about the kind of artwork I as a young person could engage with if I had more of an understanding of the elder artists generation. It is from this desire for connection that I began this project.