Art of Aging: Main Line couple enjoy retirement through art

CENTER CITY (WPVI) -- For seniors who've had intense careers, retirement might imply leisure-time.

But for a Main Line couple, the golden years are giving them a chance to literally develop their 'Art of Aging'.

Hal Robinson was that cardiologist and his wife, Linda, taught. For them, retirement is filled with opportunities - full time painting for Hal and teaching at the Barnes Museum for Linda.

"All my adult life, I want to live and do something constructive, something where I feel I'm making a contribution," said Linda.

Linda will be teaching a course on Women Artists this fall at the Barnes, where she is also a docent.

"So I am invigorated by it, I am inspired by it, it gives me a focus of my life," she said.

Hal has sold 60 of his paintings. His work hangs in European homes and from Maine to California in the USA.

"I'm living off my IRA, not my painting sales, and it's very gratifying to know that other people enjoy what I've produced," he said.

But Hal likens the focus needed in painting to that required in the ER.

"To create the right composition, to solve the problems which it presents, equates to the problems I solved as a cardiologist," he said. "I appreciate the fact that I have one more day to enjoy what's around me, and enjoy painting, and enjoy my amazing wife."

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