Thirty years ago, Golda Freund decided she wanted to make something pretty.
She’s in her 80s now. And these days, pretty things surround her. China plates with painted flowers. China eggs with small birds peeking out. Even a nearby hanging lamp shows off the delicate colors of a painted hummingbird in flight.
“I guess I just always loved flowers and pretty things,” Freund said. “I’ve always liked putting colors together.”
She’s not the only one enjoying the results. Last year, one of Freund’s painted china eggs took first place in a juried art show for seniors and went on display in Wichita. She displayed some of her work again this year, but not competitively.
“This year, I really didn’t want to send any of my better things down to Wichita for two months,” Freund said.
She isn’t the first artist in the family — or the first late-blooming painter, for that matter. Freund’s mother first began to paint in her 60s, on canvas rather than china. Two of her paintings, depicting outdoor scenes, still hang in Freund’s apartment at Presbyterian Manor.
Freund began her own painting with a class in china painting taught by Jane Hammer, a former city commissioner and mayor of Emporia. Two things soon became clear to Freund. First, that this was very tedious, exacting, demanding work. And second, that she absolutely loved it.
Eventually, Freund would display and sell her work at two to three shows a year. It was fun and also, given the nature of china painting, very practical.
“It’s not an inexpensive art,” she said.
The trips eventually came to an end when she got too tired to carry her boxes.
“I still give them away, though,” she said.
It’s an art that requires patience. It takes time just to get the right consistency of paint, time to paint in the small details, time to fire it in the kiln until it’s just right.
On the other hand, finding someone who wants the final result takes almost no time at all. Many of Freund’s works become wedding or holiday gifts. She’s not working on anything right now, but that will likely change as Christmas gets closer.
She still has a small kiln, though the large one had to be sold when she moved into Presbyterian Manor — there just wasn’t room. More importantly, she still has the excitement she felt when she picked up the brush for the first time.
“I remember Jane Hammer telling us, ‘When you open your kiln up after firing your china, it’s like every morning is Christmas morning,’” Freund said. “I’ve thought of that many times.”