Etta Clark, like all artists, she sees with a fresh eye. Hers was the discovery in lovely Marin County, California, where the mania for fitness among young and middle-aged is akin to religious ecstasy, that here and there were older people (seniors, I suppose we must say,) who had simply made up their minds to stand their ground against time’s predation. Let skin sag and wrinkle, they would keep the muscles beneath supple by
working them as hard as in youth. Or harder: in the past, physical exercise didn’t have the cachet it does now. Some of the older women, in fact, were firmly told in girlhood that ladies didn’t sweat.
A T-shirt I recently saw said, “Eat Right. Stay Fit. Die Anyway.” Well, yes. None of the recent discoveries in medicine and nutrition alters the hard truth about that third proposition. We have our brief mayfly’s glimmer in the material world and then disappear into the mystery. But people are living longer. And there seems no argument that regular exercise keeps lives better longer. The subjects of Clark’s photography have taken that small nugget of wisdom to the next level. If some exercise is good, does it not follow that more is better?
The elderly athletes in this book cleave through straits and bays,
run marathons, practice martial arts, dance aerobically or with taps on their shoes. Some gallop horses; others compete in swimming meets or pound younger sparring mates with boxing gloves. Exercise may not be the elixir Ponce de Leon sought, that fabled draught from the Fountain of Youth, but it appears to slow the aging process and may have restorative value. The body is a machine with capacities greater than previously understood, but it is vital to keep the rust off the moving parts. Seemingly, it doesn’t matter what you do in the way of exercise, only that you do.
One mission of art (there are many) is to inspire. In her photographs, Clark inspires us to realize that whatever our age, it is never too late to rise from our couches, turn off the television/computer and begin to exercise. All else will follow.
-Jerry Carroll
In der Form eines Romans schildert der Autor offen und frech die Bemühungen eines fiktiven deutschen Unternehmens um ein großes Rüstungsgeschäft mit einem von politischen Wirren gebeutelten Entwicklungsland.
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