Iris Steensma - printmaker: The Purple Women
Many of us are familiar with this poem Warning, the one about wearing purple and a red hat when you are old, but there is more!
These lino prints were inspired by friends who came up with even more ideas on how to grow old disgracefully.
Click on the small images below for close-ups.
- Warning -
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat But now we must have clothes that keep us dry Jenny Joseph
I shall have a purple rinse
I shall learn to skateboard
I shall read in the bath
I shall have a tattoo
I shall have champagne for breakfast
I shall run away and join the circus
I shall start exercising regularly
With a red hat that doesn't go and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say that we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only eat bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We will have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old and start to wear purple.
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