At the age of eighty, a farmer's wife in Cambridge,
Virginia, suffered from painful arthritis. The mother
of ten children and many grandchildren -- and
great-grandchildren -- loved to do needlework, but her
fingers could no longer manipulate the large needle to
embroider.
The elderly woman looked for something else that would
keep her occupied and found she could hold a small
paintbrush much easier than a needle. So she tried her
hand painting. She thought her farm and country scenes
were good enough to show at the Cambridge Fair, but
only won prizes for her jams and canned fruit. There
were no blue ribbons for her art.
Then one day an art collector from New York City was
traveling through the village and noticed several of
her paintings for sale in a local drug store. When he
showed them to his friends in the art circles of
Manhattan, they were more than curious.
Soon, 'Grandma Moses' gained an international
reputation. Her widely-collected works of art were
featured on calendars, greeting cards and in
exhibitions in leading galleries including the Modern
Museum of Art in New York.
Even more amazing, twenty-five percent of her 1,500
popular paintings were done after she was 100!
