When reading the novel "Crime and Punishment" a couple of years ago, I was struck by the age of mother of an ill-fated student Raskolnikov, who acquired the possibility of moral rebirth in painful and brutal way. I saw Pulkheria Alexandrovna as an elderly woman, whose destiny is to live out her days, knitting and worrying about her children fate. But she's only 43 years old! Being only 52 and having two, adult sons, I imagined being in her shoes and was glad that nowadays, we have many opportunities to live actively after 50.

I am not a feminist or a traditionalist, I am for freedom of choice and a happy life filled with creativity and inspiration, regardless of age. I have decided to tell you weekly about women whose creative life did not stop, but blossomed after 60 years! I cannot call them old ladies... I will call such articles "Old Age is Fun!"

Meet Anna Moses, a famous American artist

Once upon a time there was a woman named Anna. She was born in 1860 on the outskirts of New York in a poor family. She studied nowhere, when she was 27 Annd married a poor, gave birth to ten children, five of them died, and worked on the farm all her life. When she was 67 years, she, so to speak, retired - resigned as a farmer, handing the reins to one of her sons. Anna was not lazybones and quickly found a hobby - embroidery. She could embroider to the end of life if not for damn arthritis. It was the disease that caused Anna to start painting whe she was 76 year.

She gave her paintings to friends and acquaintances, one of whom was a local pharmacist who decorated the walls of his pharmacy with Anna`s gifts. It happened so that one day Louis Caldor, a fan of painting from New York, passed by that pharmacy and went inside. He himself did not expect these unpretentious, naive paintings to touch him so much. Caldor did not only buy all the works from a surprised pharmacist and became friends with Anna, but also he decided to intoduce an old woman-artist to people.

To succeed, you need several components, one of which is, of course, luck. After several years of unsuccessful attempts to captivate the owners of galleries and art salons, Kaldor found luck only in 1939. Sidney Janis, a collector, chose three paintings by Grandma Moses (that is how an unexpected and passionate admirer of her work called Anna) and included them to the exhibition, intended for private viewing. The following year was marked by a full-scale exhibition " Drawings from the farm". It was a starting point.

As they say, third time is the charm. The third exhibition organized by Gimbels (one of the oldest and largest department stores in New York) brought fame to Grandma Moses. She was invited to come to New York and speak at a press conference, which she, no doubt, did. It was a real sensation — the audience fell in love with this dry, small, very simple and charming old woman with true eyes, dressed up in a simple black dress and well-known Victorian hat. It was not for nothing...

Stories about Cinderellas, who made their ways from poverty and obscurity to wealth and glory, always worried and resonated with millions. But Grandma Moses broke all records — she became famous in 80 years and she never wanted to run away from her provincial town. Over the next 10 years, Anna's paintings conquered all America, Europe and even Japan — thirty exhibitions in the States, ten on the continent and one on the distant Japanese Islands. In 1949, Harry Truman, the President of the United State, gave famous grandma an award of Women's National Press Club.

Glory, however, did not change Anna. She stayed to live in her old house and draw dear to her heart landscapes, perfect farms, rural household sketches. "I look back on my life as a completed day job, and I'm happy with how it's done. Life is what we make of it. It has always been so, and it will always be so," she said about herself in an interview given to Time and Life magazines. Yes, the photo of a famous grandmother was on the covers of these respected magazines together with the stars of politics, culture, sports.

To sum up, starting a career as a painter in 76 years, Anna Marie Moses became a famous primitivist artist of America. One of her first paintings was "The Old Checkered House", bought for $110, in 2004, the price increased significantly and was sold at auction in Memphis for $60,000. Grandma Moses lived to 101 years, worked actively until the last day and left behind more than 1,600 paintings.