Date:  April 2, 2008

Contact: Susan Annett, Principal Librarian, Public & Branch Services (310) 458-8640; or Myung Deering, Senior Arts Foundation (310) 393-0701, ext. 21 

Discovering Your Second Career with the Arts

Santa Monica, California — The Senior Arts Foundation and the City of Santa Monica present “Discovering Your Second Career with the Arts” on Sunday, June 15 at 2 p.m. at the Santa Monica Public Library’s Martin Luther King Jr. Auditorium, 601 Santa Monica Boulevard.

This program features individuals who have successfully retired from one profession only to launch a new livelihood in the arts. Robert Wheeler, a retired Los Angeles Police Department motorcycle officer, became a romance author. After publishing Love Forever Lost and Beyond Yesterday, he began drawing and painting, finding his inspiration from a number of sources including motion, emotion and streetscapes. His artwork has been shown in galleries in Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo and Montréal.

Ursula M. Kammer-Fox was born in Germany and has lived in Europe, Latin America and America. She taught languages for many years before studying art at Santa Monica College where she realized that art is yet another language. She creates collages and assemblages because they allow her to explore the “ambiguities of power, religion and sex, while recycling man- and nature-made leftovers, rediscovering and rearranging the familiar and telling unfinished stories.”

Dr. Donald Wagner had a successful career as a surgeon and Medical Director of Saint John’s Cancer Center before retiring in 1991. Since then, he has pursued his avocations as a wood sculptor, a brass instrumentalist and chronicled his experiences in a couple of books. The stories and experiences of Mr. Wheeler, Ms. Kammer-Fox and Dr. Wagner may inspire other seniors, no matter what their background, to discover a second career in the arts.

The Senior Arts and Community Forum series is sponsored by the City’s Cultural Affairs and Human Services Divisions, the Santa Monica Public Library, and the Senior Arts Foundation, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to making the arts more accessible to seniors.  For more information about the Senior Arts Foundation visit www.SeniorArtsFoundation.org.  This Forum is also endorsed by Santa Monica College’s Emeritus College.

“Discovering Your Second Career with the Arts” is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Senior Arts Foundation at (310) 393-0701 extension 21, or the Main Library at (310) 458-8600.

# # #