The Art of Aging
Click on an image below to hear a recorded interview
Barbara McHugh
Age 81, Bellingham
Jim Lortz
Age 66, Bellingham
Teresa Garcia
Age 89, Lynden
Beth and Spencer Ahrens
Ages 85 and 88, Everson
LeAna Osterman
Age 80, Lynden
Sharon Wagner
Age 80, Bellingham
Robin Dexter
Age 73, Bellingham
Liz Baxter
Age 65, Bellingham
Maggie Weisberg
Age 96, Bellingham
Tommy Gibson
Age 77, Bellingham
Daljit Dhillon
Age 69, Ferndale
Sandy Stork
Age 78, Bellingham
Jack Lee
Age 91, Bellingham
Danita Washington
Cē lēēa’
Age 65, Lummi Nation
Josselyn Winslow
Age 90, Bellingham
Dan Raas
Age 73, Bellingham
Kay Sutcliffe
Age 68, Ferndale
Margaret Dickson
Age 99, Bellingham
Dan First Scout Rowe
Duwa Togahe
Age 73, Bellingham
One of the elements addressed in the Aging Well Whatcom Blueprint is Cultural Shift, acknowledging that “our community has an incomplete and often negatively biased vision of aging.” One of the expressed goals of this initiative is that “our community will have a full, honest understanding of the entire range of the realities of aging.”
The Art of Aging project was started because we recognized that although we know a lot about aging, most of what we know are broad brushstrokes. The details are missing. Important details. Reading statistical and demographic data, we cannot see the unique features that grace the face of each aging person. When we look across our community, as a whole, we cannot possibly see the laugh lines and creases of sorrow of each individual’s experiences or hear their voice or rhythms of their thoughts.
The Art of Aging project is one step toward exploring some of the details of aging through series of portraits and recorded interviews reflecting diverse experiences of older adults in Whatcom County, as told through their own words.
A collaboration between Marie Eaton, Sarah Lane, and Richard Scholtz, the project will produce 20 painted and audio portraits throughout 2021.
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Portraits do more than record likeness.
They have the power to tell a story that must be told.
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From the project team
The Art of Aging project was developed by Marie Eaton, Community Champion for the Palliative Care Institute. Portraits were painted by Sarah Lane and audio engineering and “audio sculpting” was provided by Richard Scholtz. Our collaboration brought together wonderfully different ways of "paying attention" to our conversation partners, the visual and the auditory revealing different details.
We spent an hour with each conversation partner, starting with a few prompting questions, but mostly following their lead as we reflected together about what it means to grow older. Every conversation was rich and revealing, shaped by the topics and stories they wanted to tell but also influenced by our own curiosity and the individual character and experiences of each person. The audio snapshots you will hear are just a sketch, capturing some of the themes and insights that emerged, and the portraits, painted from screen shots, frame these details.
Our goal was to find the strong stories and images that best communicate their stories -- and how those experiences have created the person they have become. After the audio was edited and shaped, we shared the condensed audio clip and portrait with each conversation partner to be sure that they still recognized themselves in what we created, giving them the final approval for what we share here.
Because of the pandemic, all of the interviews were done via Zoom, and although this medium has its limitations, in some ways it also allowed us to connect with members of the community that may have been harder to visit in person. Using Zoom to gather audio and visual information can be limiting, and the audio-video quality varied in each conversation, based on our individual hardware, software and internet connections. However, just as when the light fades, hearing may become a bit more keen, our senses were heightened to the whole experience of each conversation, almost synesthetic, as stories crossed the boundaries of our senses.
Each of these conversation partners let us know that they appreciated a venue to tell their stories and felt honored to be invited. We also learned that older adults are not a homogeneous group. While some common themes begin to emerge, our stronger impression is of the uniqueness of each life and the clarity that can come with living a long life. Their stories are diverse, vital and rich, pulsing with color and light, sound and vibration, and great love for this world, their community and those who will come after them.
We hope these portraits and the words of each participant will illustrate some of the richness of experiences, cultures, ethnicities and identities of older adults in our community.