Redefining Aging with Grace

LeMoyne exhibit honors senior women: Here they are and here’s what they did

Women are expected to age with grace, their contributions recognized only so long as their skin remains pert and hair never grays.

Conservationist Eleanor Dietrich and artist Linda Hall set these expectations aside. The close friends knew there to be more to women’s stories beyond youth. As Dietrich reached her 75th birthday, she asked a simple question: “What are women my age doing now?”

This question was the impetus for Women Among Us: Portraits of Strength, a 2021 exhibit at LeMoyne Arts featuring black and white portraits of 17 Tallahassee women. The exhibit combined the talents of several like-minded women: photographer Becki Rutta, who captured each subject with attire and keepsakes that spoke to their identity; poet Mary Jane Ryals, who wrote biographies and haikus to accompany Rutta’s images; and graphic designer and marketing maven, Lynne Knight.

It was more than well received by the community. Now, the women are looking to recapture the magic.

“Not a lot of art exhibits get a lot of people, but this one in particular does,” Ryals said “Why? I’m not sure. Except maybe it’s just time for this, we’re hungry for it.”

The group’s second exhibit will be on display at LeMoyne from Thursday, Sept. 28, through Saturday, Oct. 28, where 21 Tallahassee women aged 65-plus will be similarly featured in imposing 40-by-50-inch black and white portraits.

This year, Rutta opted for a change of backdrop scenery, moving from studio space into each woman’s home or workspace.

“Visually, in some ways, it’s going to be more complex,” Rutta said. “It adds another level to the image that I think is really going to draw the viewer in.”

The setting allowed for a relaxed experience, as the five-woman dream team spent time communing with the subjects — there was coffee, snacking and laughing. It was a room of women creating art and forming relationships. Ryals used the conversational setting as the basis for her writing.

“It doesn’t feel like work sometimes,” Rutta said. “It’s just like making friends.”

“These are women who’ve never been the center of attention for much of anything, most of them,” Ryals said. “So, we’d try to make them feel comfortable.”

Ryals feels the project is important to share across generations, as the anxieties of aging impact women at all stages of life. The stigma around aging aligns the decline of beauty and health with aging, but these women prove otherwise. Instead, she believes aging with pride trumps aging with grace.

“We need to learn how to talk about ourselves without feeling like we’re bragging,” Ryals said. “That is one thing I think is happening. These women say, ‘Here I am, here’s what I’ve done.’”

A few among this year’s Women Among Us are: Marjorie Williams, an African American teacher who began her career amid segregation; Georgia Bowen, the longest-running school board member in Leon County who served for 22 years before retiring in 2022; Barbara Hamby, a professor of creative writing at Florida State University who has seven published collections of poetry; professional sitarist Nalini Vinayak; and Myra Hurt, a founding faculty member and the first acting dean of FSU’s College of Medicine.

“They don’t stop,” Ryals said. “They have done this stuff all their lives. (They are) focused and driven, and they care about other women.”

In the summer of 2024, the two exhibits will merge and be displayed at the Capitol building’s top-floor event space.

“I don’t think it’s going to be lost on anybody,” Rutta said, pausing for a laugh, “this traditionally masculine system having these incredible women stuck at the top. It will really bring it home. And who knows what can come of that, what kind of changes are out there that we can make.”

Women Among Us: Portraits of Strength

LeMoyne Arts will host a display of portraits of Tallahassee senior women of merit and accomplishment from Sept. 28 through Oct. 28. It will be the second such exhibit at the center, assembled in an effort to celebrate the enchanting, important and often indispensable contributions made by women to the
fabric of the community.