Photography

Wise Women; A Celebration of Their Insights, Courage and Beauty

by Joyce Tenneson
Bulfinch Press, 143 pages

"I still remember what it feels like to love with all my heart." It's a fitting quote from a woman named Elva Azzara, whose portrait ends this book of quite remarkable photographs

I can remember my own mother saying at some point that, "Even though my face and body has aged, I have the same feeling that I did when I was young, inside."

Joyce Tenneson has built a collection of portraits of women who possess character, strength and vitality. They are clearly eager to see that spirit on to the younger generations of women who will all pass this same way one day.

Tenneson's author proceeds are to be donated to The Light Warriors, a nonprofit organization that provides mentoring and scholarships in the creative arts.

Ruth Handler, the founder of the Barbie Doll, is there with four of the diminutive fashion icons. She is so clear-eyed and proud of her creation that it's difficult to remember that she died recently. Many of the faces are familiar and comfortingly so: Judi Dench, Lauren Bacall, Marian Seldes, Angela Lansbury and Brooke Astor, now 100 years old.

But there are others not so familiar and it is their faces and sayings that I find most appealing and refreshing. There is a willingness to display themselves, their aging selves with pride and truth.

Perhaps most emblematic of that stance is Krista Gottlieb who stipulated that she would pose partially nude in order to show people that a mastectomy "doesn't look so bad."

Indeed.

Phyllis Silverman at 90: This is a great period in my life. My challenge now is to paint with my true voice. I've been painting all my life, but somehow I still haven't been able to express my deepest vision. Not yet, that is!

Geraldine Smith at 70: I don't need a mirror to see how I look. Long ago, I realized the inner self is visible if you present yourself truthfully and authentically. I'm comfortable with getting older. I have lived a good life.

Ruth Turner at 75 (pictured with her aunt Edith, who is 96): I just got married again. I answered an ad in the New York Review of Books. That's how I met Larry. I am his sexual fantasy. We have a wonderful life together, but we kept our separate apartments. We have more freedom that way, and of course it's romantic as well.

Zelda Kaplan at 85: Now I travel to remote villages around the world where women weave their own cloth. I design all my clothes and try to keep the integrity of the cloth.

I like hats. This one (Zelda, in the portrait is wearing a marvelous, chiffony tall creation with a sparkly pin) makes me feel like I'm a mythic priest who brings joy and love to the people around her.

I just bet she does.

—Tam Gray

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