4comculture seeks to weave the contributions of individuals and cultures, building a strong community fabric. One definition of the word culture is “the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols, and to act imaginatively and creatively.” Recently I visited with a local artist has spent her long life imaginatively and creatively.

Marie Whitesel

Marie Whitesel is living testimony to her belief that doing something you love keeps you alive. Her dining room table is covered with examples of her work – some done years ago, some done hours ago. At 96 she still cannot pass a single day without working with watercolors. A life long resident of Idaho, her alma mater, the University of Idaho,  published this article in August 2011 upon the occasion of an exhibit of her work there.

This brought to mind other artists whom I have known in the later years of their long and productive lives.

Joe Daugherty

Joe is like the stone he works with – strong, incorruptible, quiet, forceful, the passing years touching him lightly.

Ruth Shirley Beal

 

Ruth literally wove the fabric of the community with some of her early weaving projects, but has never been one to be stuck with one medium. Always open to new processes she moved to assemblages and now works in the digital photographic medium. She is seen above with her husband, artist Bruce Beal.