Heartlifters for the Young at Heart Surprising Stories, Stirring Messages, and Refreshing Scriptures That Make the Heart Soar

Insight Anna Mary Robertson's career as a painter didn't begin until her seventieth birthday -- and then almost by accident -- when her younger sister coaxed her into trying to use a paintbrush. Arthritis had made it difficult to do the fancy needlework she'd learned at age twelve while working as a "hired girl" for a well-to-do family -- the Whitesides. Mrs. Whiteside taught Anna to make the "prettiest fancy work in Washington County." But Anna was more intrigued by the pictures that hung in the Whiteside home, and she began studying and drawing them after Mr. Whiteside gave her the first chalk crayons she'd ever seen. The scenes reminded her of how her father had raised her to soak up the simple beauty of the land that surrounded her. "A body can't daydream indoors, must have earth and sky for dreaming and being blessed with second sight," he said. Anna worked in several homes before she married at age twenty-seven. She bore ten children -- half of whom she buried in infancy. At age seventy-five, Anna bought her first real artist's brushes and "oil paint in tubes" at W. D. Thomas's drugstore. Four years later she priced four paintings at two dollars each and hung them in the drugstore window. A part-time art collector, Mr. Louis J. Caldor, bought all four paintings and asked how to find Anna. "He was the snowball that started the avalanche," Anna recalled years later. He persuaded Mr. Otto Kallir, a world-renowned art authority, to look at her work and sponsor Anna's first "showing." During World War II, her paintings were sent overseas and were viewed by more than one hundred thousand people. "The world," in Emerson's words, "beat a path to her door." Anna, known around the world as Grandma Moses, had never set foot in art school but had received all the awards they had to offer. When Anna was eighty-nine, President Harry S. Truman presented her with the Women's National Press Club's Achievement Award for outstanding accomplishment in art. New York governor Nelson Rockefeller declared September 7, 1961 "Grandma Moses Day," proclaiming, "Her lesson of life will last as long as her pictures. For the old she left the lesson of renewed spirit and zest for life -- that dawn's brightest colors can be saved to give twilight its glow. To the young -- she left the lesson of her life -- by which she has stimulated and inspired a yearning for a simplicity that brings contentment to walking the earth and a kinship with nature that gives security to the walk." Anna's painting titled July 4 was presented to the American people and still hangs in the White House. Before she died at the age of 101, Grandma Moses had painted more than sixteen hundred pictures and taken her place among the great artists of the world. Her paintings now hang in museums across the country. But perhaps her greatest legacy was expressed by her son who said, "She taught us to make good tracks." Have you ever stood and gazed at a sunset? I don't mean gazed in the sense that you noticed or casually observed it. But have you ever truly allowed yourself to be caught up in the wonder of God's magnificent handiwork -- marveled at His suspended curtain -- brilliantly displayed with opalescent swirls of orange and purple hues against a sapphire blue sky? Observation and insight are wonderful attributes that give your eyes "heart" and permit them to contemplate majesty and simplicity at the same time. Insight connects you to the wonderment within your soul. Responsibilities and challenges of life can easily steal your joy if you're not careful. But God uses nature to paint a picturDuke, Susan is the author of 'Heartlifters for the Young at Heart Surprising Stories, Stirring Messages, and Refreshing Scriptures That Make the Heart Soar' with ISBN 9781582291574 and ISBN 1582291578.