For our annual “Aging Gratefully” cover package, Jmore interviewed three members of the Edward A. Myerberg Center in Northwest Baltimore to learn about how participating in creative endeavors there has added meaning, nuance and purpose to their lives.
Brush It Off
Bess Shuster has always enjoyed being creative. Even as a saleswoman at a local furniture store during her working years, she says she designed rooms and interior décor layouts for customers.
“I used to call myself ‘The Dreckorator,’” she says with a laugh. “I’m not a serious person. Life should be fun. I just have that creative instinct in me. I’ve always been a doodler. I wanted to be an art teacher, but I met my husband in my last year of high school, and I put all of that on the side.”
But after raising a family and retiring as a saleswoman at Radcliffe Jewelers seven years ago, the 74-year-old Shuster, who lives in Pikesville with her husband, Steve, thought of her late mother, Belle Greenberg, and the art classes she took at the Myerberg Center years ago.
“My mom used to come here to paint, so I figured I’d go and check it out, too,” Shuster says.
Since then, Shuster, a Baltimore-born mother of two and grandmother of two, says she has finally found her artistic calling.
“My teacher, Mary Beth [Dickman], allows us to do any kind of art we want to do,” he says. “She encourages us to do anything that fits our personality, and Mary Beth has become my biggest cheerleader.”
Shuster discovered that her niche is mixed-media art, particularly multi-color abstract works with such three-dimensional objects as buttons and magazine cutouts.
“It doesn’t look like something, it’s abstract expressionism,” she says of her paintings. “It’s colorful with lots of forms and shapes. It should make you smile when you look at it. It shows everything — love, happiness, warmth. I want things to provoke a good feeling for people when they look at my art.
“I’m the only one in the class who does what I do,” Shuster says. “I can’t draw like they can. But we all support each other, and I’ve learned a lot from my class. I’ve gotten so much better. I just love it. It makes me so happy.”
Shuster says she often finds herself giving away her paintings to family members, friends and others.
“I do it for my own sense of joy, and if it makes someone else happy, I want to share it,” she says. “If someone likes one of my pieces, I just say, ‘Go ahead, take it home.’”
When telling people about her activities at the Myerberg, Shuster says that some peers are critical or perplexed.
“They think it’s for old people,” she says. “But I tell them, ‘You should try it and see if it works for you. Get over yourself!’ If you worked all of your life, now is the time to make yourself happy. Life is way too short and things can railroad you. Find something that makes you happy and don’t sweat the small stuff!”
When creating her art works, Shuster says she usually starts out painting in black and white but then throws in flourishes of reds, greens and purples.
“I like to mix it all up and make it warm,” she says. “It’s fun. I love it.”
Shuster says she hopes people who see her work take away her personal life credo of being grateful.
“I’m on the right side of the earth, and I have the love of my family,” she says. “I don’t really think about age. It’s just a number to me. My husband and I laugh every day, just about silly stuff. That’s what life is all about.”
A committed philanthropist and community leader, Russel was president of R&H Motors.
The mother of four was a native of Winchester, Virginia, who spent most of her life in Northwest Baltimore.
The Columbia resident worked on the Gemini and Apollo space missions.
A St. Louis native, Edelman served as ambassador to the central African nation from 1987 to 1989.