A Booming Career in her 90s!

In a recent New York Times, there was a fascinating article about Carmen Herrera, a painter who is now gaining recognition at age 94.  Even though she has been privately painting for more than six decades, she sold her first painting at 89.  Her style is considered a minimalist who paints geometric art.  Her larger works sell for $30,000 abd one painting even brought her $44,000 to which Herrera said, "I have more money now than I ever had in my life."

But what caught my attention was Herrera's comments that resonate with sage-ing principles.  She continues to learn, to create, and to live life to its fullest:

"I do it [art] because I have to do it; it's a compulsion that also gives me pleasure.  I never in my life had any idea of money and I thought fame was a very vulgar thing.  So I just worked and waited.  And at the end of my life, I'm getting a lot of recognition, to my amazement and my pleasure, actually."

This story reminds me of a comment made by a participant in one of my seminars.  We were talking about sage-ing and growing in wisdom.  A woman spoke up and said that her grandmother figured out how to do this years ago and served as her inspiration.  She asked her grandmother where she learned how to live and the response was memorable.  Her grandmother told her that throughout her life she always looked for role models (people who were living in healthy and admirable ways) who were about 10 years older than she about every 10 years.  So she always had someone leading the way.

How inspiring to read about people such as Herrera who just kept on a healthy path for all of the right reasons.  We should all be so fortunate to have our health and to keep moving on down the "path."

Do you know someone who inspires you as Carmen Herrera?