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Still Kicking After All These Years [1]
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Date: 2022-12-13
With all the debates about whether Biden should stand for re-election at his advanced age, I began paying attention to news of seniors who have defied the naysayers to continue following the work that gives their lives meaning. Here are a few examples. Today, December 13, 2022, The Guardian highlights Joyce DeFauw:
Joyce DeFauw of Illinois has given a whole new meaning to the term super senior, used for students who take longer than the usual four years to get their undergraduate degrees. On Sunday, the 90-year-old received a bachelor’s of general studies from Northern Illinois University more than seven decades after she first stepped on campus, becoming what officials believe to be the eldest person to ever graduate from the school. “I’d never dreamed I’d be around at this time, but here I am,” DeFauw said about her academic journey in a report published by the local news outlet WREX. “I’ve learned that I can do things I never thought I could do, with the help of others. You can never quit learning.” According to WREX, DeFauw initially enrolled at her alma mater in 1951, when Americans were first introduced to the inventions of super glue,videotape recorders and credit cards. The school was known as Northern Illinois State Teachers College at the time. Her name was Joyce Kane, and originally she pursued a teaching degree but switched her major to home economics. … DeFauw was among nearly a quarter of people who earn bachelor’s degrees and take more than the standard four years to complete their programs. But it is much more unusual for people her age to complete a bachelor’s degree. In fact, in 2016, Japan’s Shigemi Hirata set a Guinness world record by attaining a bachelor’s of art from the Kyoto University of Artand Design at age 96. The prior holder was Nola Ochs, who was 95 when she received her diploma from Fort Hays State University in Kansas in 2007.
www.theguardian.com/…
In November 2021, the CBC reported that Ontario grandmother Varatha Shanmuganathan, 87, a Vaughan resident, graduated on November 2nd with her second master's degree. In a tweet, Shanmuganathan shared advice for younger graduates: "I will tell them, the younger generation, do your degrees, not just for career's sake. It should be something that should be life-changing…And you should think, not about yourself all the time, but think of your country, think of the world, think of all the issues that are being discussed in this world."
According to York Media Relations, Shanmuganathan was born in the village ofVelanai in Sri Lanka. She got her bachelor's degree at the University of Madras in India. After she returned to Sri Lanka, she became a teacher of Indian history and English. Later, she earned a diploma in education from the University of Ceylon. She earned her first master's degree from the University of London when she was in her 50s. She started her second master's degree at age 85. The subject of her research was Sri Lanka after the civil war there and prospects for peace.
www.cbc.ca/…
Finally, The Guardian has run two stories on Veronica Ryan,age 66, the 2022 Turner prize-winner for her sculpture honoring the Windrush generation.
Veronica Ryan, who created the UK’s first permanent artwork to honour the Windrush generation, has won the 2022 Turner prize, one of the world’s most prestigious awards for visual arts. Ryan, 66, becomes the oldest artist to win the prize. She was nominated for the Windrush sculpture, which was unveiled in Hackney, London, last year, and for her solo exhibition Along a Spectrum at Spike Island, Bristol. Ryan– who received an OBE last year – was born in Plymouth, Montserrat and came to the UK as a child in the 1950s. She creates sculptural objects and installations using containers, compartments and combinations of natural and fabricated forms to reference themes such as displacement, fragmentation,alienation and loss. ... The jury awarded the prize for the “personal and poetic way she extends the language of sculpture”. They also praised the noticeable shift in her use of space, colour and scale both in gallery and civic spaces.
www.theguardian.com/…
In an opinion piece celebrating Ryan’s award, Martha Gill writes:
Mid-career people in the arts need to feel it is still worth honing their skills, that they are progressing, that great rewards may still glimmer on the horizon – if only they can get this character right, or that chord down, or capture that light. After all, aside from the odd genuine prodigy, years of honing are how great artists are made. There is a serious debate over whether mathematicians “peak” at a young age – some studies bear this out. There is no such pattern in the arts: in fact, most artists improve with time. Van Gogh’s first “significant” painting, The Potato Eaters, is imbalanced and drab – at 32, he is yet to properly master colour and form; he is not yet the genius that will give us the sunflowers. John Updike was 26 when he published his first novel, The Poorhouse Fair, to deservedly poor reviews. Philip Pullman has actually disowned his first novel, published when he was 25. (At his request it has never been republished.) “At last the Turner prize gets it. Artists improve with age”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/11/veronica-ryan-turner-prize-winner-artists-age?CMP=share_btn_link
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