"Do Not Regret Growing Older, It Is A Privilege Denied to Many" is the defiant wording on one of the works by Taranaki textile artist Jeanette Verster in an exhibition called I Haven't Lost My Marbles (Yet).
The title's taken from her embroidery of a head with a brain filled with shiny green marbles.
It's part of what Jeanette calls "an ABC for the unyoung", the opposite of all those first ABC books for children.
She tells Lynn Freeman she came up with the idea before the pandemic but believes it's super timely to ask why our senior society is important to us.
Jeanette's exhibition is on at the From Out of The Blue studio gallery in Opunake, South Taranaki. Its aim is to teach and nurture traditional textile practices - from embroidery and painting to paper making and knitting - while at the same time encouraging them to be used in new ways.
