‘Artists-in-Residence’ Embrace Creative Possibilities

Anna Edwards, a resident of Broadmoor Plaza in San Leandro, Calif., is nurturing an artistic passion that was dormant for years. When Robert Clemons was invited to show some of his pen and ink portraits at the Oakland Museum last year, he was surprised and delighted. The E. E. Cleveland Manor resident had been drawing since he was a child, and in his late 30s he earned a B.F.A. at the prestigious California College of the Arts. But his career had been spent as a housing inspector, not a professional artist, and he was flabbergasted when the curator of the museum show gave his work a featured location. He remembers telling himself, “Maybe I’ve arrived and I didn’t even know I was coming.”

Like many of the numerous artists in American Baptist Homes of the West (ABHOW) communities, Clemons finds that the time and attention he can give his artwork in retirement have led him to a new level. “I’m getting better each year, because now it’s not a pressure thing,” he said. “I’m confident in my drawing now and I’m more interested in learning about my materials, the different inks, the papers, the points of the pens, the different techniques. I’m reading a lot about different people’s work. And of course here in the Bay Area with Berkeley right around the corner, there are a lot of libraries and museums I can go look at, so I can learn what’s been done and where I want to go.”

Clemons’ passionate pursuit of artistic growth is shared by many other residents in ABHOW communities. Whether they’ve been working artists all their lives or always wanted to be, whether they’re picking up a paintbrush for the first time or honing skills developed over many years, a remarkable number of residents are fervent about making art. Turning to the creative arts in retirement is nothing new, of course. What is new is how passionately these artists embrace the creative possibilities of this stage of life.

Anna Edwards, a resident at Broadmoor Plaza in San Leandro, Calif., says that the abstract paintings she creates give expression to a side of her that was dormant for the many years she worked in corporate jobs. “It’s something I always wanted to do and I can do it now,” she said. She holds an annual open studio in the work space she maintains right across the street from Broadmoor, and she shows her paintings regularly in the Bay Area and beyond. She’s also a docent at the Oakland Museum and a member of several arts councils; she teaches at a local arts organization and volunteers as an artist in the local schools.

Although her work is abstract, she finds that visual memories from exploring the world’s cities find their way into her paintings. “Wherever I went, I took a Greyline tour or would just walk, and the architecture, the different cultural aspects, I found so intriguing,” she said. She tries in her paintings to convey the energy and sensations of the urban landscapes she recalls.

Edwards’ formal training in art has all come in the last 15 years. When she was a youngster, she didn’t tell anybody she wanted art training, though it was always in the back of her head. Since the early ‘90s, she has made up for that with numerous courses in drawing, painting, woodworking and printmaking.

For Polly Victor, her move to San Joaquin Gardens in Fresno, Calif., prompted a change of media. For about 20 years, she created large scrap metal sculptures, some of which she brought with her to her new home. Now she works in two dimensions, using an unusual pastel technique in which she grinds up different colors and applies them by hand with a chamois. Though she misses the physicality of sculpture and the tools she once used, she said the fact that she can continue in her artwork is very satisfying.

Victor has shown metal works and some pastels at the Fresno Art Museum and in a local membership gallery that provides her plenty of interaction with other artists. She is framing pastels now for another show in March. She did art work only intermittently until she completed her career in social work. Now, her pastels are all around her on a daily basis, out where she can look at them and think about them. She works on her pastels a few hours a day and she gets down to the museum frequently, keeping art a vital part of her daily experience.

Art can give retirees a means of expressing their creativity and increasing and maintaining their ability, said Suzie Swenson, the director of fitness activities and leisure services at Valle Verde in Santa Barbara, Calif. It can also be a means of validation. When residents share something they’ve created and get positive feedback on it, Swenson said, they remind themselves they’re still good, still appreciated. Along with other means of self-expression, she said, “art allows residents to make a choice of quality and wellness instead of ‘what’s wrong with me?’”

To Robert Clemons, art is all about growth. “I have my drawings all over the room now, pinned to my wall,” he said. “If I see I’ve accomplished something in this drawing that I wasn’t able to do in the last drawing, then I know I’m growing. That’s what I want to know—am I growing?”

LEARN MORE: To view Anna Edwards’ art, go to http://www.annawedwards.com. Valle Verde resident Paul Edwards, a noted watercolor artist and former Disney animator, has helped his community raise money for Katrina relief. Find out more at http://www.valleverdesb.com.