Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860–1961,) better known as “Grandma Moses”, was a renowned American folk artist. She is often cited as an example of an individual successfully beginning a career in the arts at an advanced age. Her family and friends called her either “Mother Moses” or “Grandma Moses”, and although she first exhibited as “Mrs. Moses”, the press eagerly dubbed her “Grandma Moses”, which stuck. LIFE magazine celebrated her 100th birthday by featuring her on its September 19, 1960 cover.
Source: Wikipedia (via CC-BY-SA license) • READ: Works by Grandma Moses
I paint from the top down. From the sky, then the mountains, then the hills, then the houses, then the cattle, and then the people.
—Grandma Moses
Topics: Simplicity
If I didn’t start painting, I would have raised chickens.
—Grandma Moses
Topics: Arts, Artists, Art
A strange thing is memory, and hope; one looks backward, and the other forward; one is of today, the other of tomorrow. Memory is history recorded in our brain, memory is a painter, it paints pictures of the past and of the day.
—Grandma Moses
Topics: Memory, Hope
Now that I am ninety-five years old, looking back over the years, I have seen many changes taking place, so many inventions have been made. Things now go faster. In olden times things were not so rushed. I think people were more content, more satisfied with life than they are today. You don’t hear nearly as much laughter and shouting as you did in my day, and what was fun for us wouldn’t be fun now…. In this age I don’t think people are as happy, they are worried. They’re too anxious to get ahead of their neighbors, they are striving and striving to get something better. I do think in a way that they have too much now. We did with much less.
—Grandma Moses
Topics: Worry
And life is what we make it. Always has been, always will be.
—Grandma Moses
Topics: Living, Life, Living Well
I look back on my life like a good day’s work; it is done and I am satisfied with it.
—Grandma Moses
Topics: Nature, Living, Appetite, Reflection, Good, Contentment, Happiness, Work, Life
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