Here I am in North Carolina, just south of Chapel Hill, retired from years of medical research and, as of two years ago, being CEO of Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology. Aside from a little consulting on non-profit management, my main activity now is painting. I designed our new home to have an art studio for me and an office/studio for Sue. Our 52nd Wedding Anniversary is fast approaching; I guess our relationship, which began junior year at Deerfield, has worked out pretty well. We have three grandsons (so far); Maxwell (8), Reed (5), and Emerson (1).
I’ve tinkered with and created some type of art, just for fun, most of my life, and occasionally I displayed it in galleries (a high point was a solo show in Stockholm in 1999), but now I am focused on painting, both oils and acrylics. The Chatham County Artists Guild invited me to join their 25 year old organization last year, and this year I am serving as President of the Artist Studios of Fearrington Village. We just finished a weekend Open Studio Tour of 23 of the artists’ studios in our group.
Sue and I are doing well, considering the age-related issues one can’t always avoid, but staying happy is the key to a long life, a recent research study states. I just try and avoid hearing, “Jamaican me crazy”.
Jim Aiken
1961
