Marin teens, older artists collaborate for exhibit on ageism

Branson School student Rayna Xu, Fairfax artist Greg Brown and Kentfield artist Mary Buttaro spent several Tuesday nights working on a painting.

Each applied acrylic paints to depict two strangers who ignore each other in a park. In the foreground is a teenage skateboarder with his back turned against an older man on a bench in the bright sun.

The artists finished their work last month and called it, “Two Worlds in the Park.” They sought to show how ageism — prejudice based upon age — can divide generations.

“They’re in the same scene and they’re super close to each other, but there is no eye contact,” Xu said. “They’re in two different worlds, despite they’re in the same park.”

The collaborators are among 24 teenage and older artists in Marin County who teamed to create works for “What About Age?,” a show at the Marin County Civic Center from Monday through May 6.

The project, organized by nonprofit Youth in Arts and the Marin Cultural Association, seeks to motivate viewers to consider ageism and how stereotypes of young and older people can affect society at large. The participants were connected at workshops held at the Youth in Arts center in San Rafael in the fall.

“I hope viewers will think about the stereotypes around aging and reflect on their own experiences,” said Cathy Bowman, a coordinator for Youth in Arts. “This exhibit gives us all a lot to think about.”

San Rafael Councilmember Rachel Kertz saw comic book-like illustrations for the original “What About Age?” project when she walked through Greenwich Village in New York City. Staff members at New York University produced the project to show how ageism can do harm.

“What struck me was that this was the first time I had really thought about ageism as its own issue,” she said. “The exhibit made ageism visible in a way that felt honest, accessible and deeply human. It didn’t feel academic or abstract — it felt real.”

Kertz contacted the show organizers and proposed bringing the exhibit to Marin.

“I hope people leave the Marin show thinking differently — not just about older adults, but about aging itself,” she said.

Stacey Gordon curated the original project. She is the associate executive director of older adult services at Queens Community House, and a fellow at the New York University Center for Health and Aging Innovation.

Gordon said the project was influenced by her experiences of working with older adults and consulting their families on caregiving.

“Oftentimes, they did that in a way that undermined the autonomy of older people,” she said.

Gordon appreciates the Marin show’s approach to partnering young artists with older ones.

“Negative age stereotypes will disappear because people get to know each other and realize, hey, this is a person — she might be 14 and he might be 84, but by and large, we’re all human beings,” Gordon said.

Aside from the “Two Worlds in the Park” painting, Xu, Brown and Buttaro submitted individual works for the show.

Xu painted an image of a broken hourglass with brightly colored children’s toys in the top part and gray-toned chess pieces and billiard balls at the bottom. The objects are meant represent age stereotypes for young and older people.

“It’s half-broken since it’s still in the process of being broken down,” Xu said.

Buttaro painted an image of a boy and an older man standing before a background of colored squares, each color representing life stages.

“The background is a metaphor for life,” she said.

Brown made a sculpture of painted, wooden balls on a board. The balls are divided into two groups, one representing teenagers and the other older adults.

Brown painted orange colors on the sides of the teenagers that face the older adults in order to show how teenagers try to fit in with each other. However, the teenagers have different colors on their opposite sides that older adults don’t see. Brown used the same method on the older adults.

“From one angle, it’s how you show yourself, it’s how you’re seen,” he said. “And the other angle shows how you really are.”

Brown said he worked as a designer for 40 years before beginning recently to paint landscapes.

“I’ve been looking forward to breaking out of my rut of just making pretty landscapes,” he said. “I want to make something that makes people go, what does that really mean and what are you trying to say? What is the concept? Is it just a pretty park?”

The “What About Age?” exhibit will be on the first and third floors of the Civic Center in San Rafael. An opening reception is scheduled for 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday.