Scientific studies have uncovered the secrets of living longer ….
and a good sex life, eating chocolate and positive thinking are all in there.
In fact, those who indulge in life’s little pleasures are shown to outlive sad and unhappy people in any number of studies.
But living as long as possible is, according to one piece of research, also dependent on making healthy choices and by adopting just four healthy behaviors — regular exercise, not smoking, avoiding alcohol abuse and eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day — you could add 14 years on to your life.
Research has also shown that a healthy weight, religion and staying out of debt are all other all ways of ensuring you have a long, happy life. However having a passion for art like Austen Dean’s who just passed away at the age of 96 can be added to the list. Renowned Canterbury artist Austin Deans has died.He combined his passion for the outdoors with his love of plein air painting to have an art career that spans over 60 years. Like Picasso he was still working almost to the end.
The 96-year-old died at Princess Margaret Hospital in Christchurch 18 October after recently suffering a stroke. Deans was an accomplished landscape painter whose work includes images from his time as a prisoner of war, portraits and water colours of Canterbury high country as well time in the Antartic .
He was a lover of life who married again in 2009 at the age of 93 after his first wife of 57 years died. He is survived by his wife Margaret and seven sons. He was a man who lived life to the full right right to the very end. This photograph of him was taken a couple of weeks ago at the York Street Gallery, Timaru at the opening of Ben Woolcombes Exhibition. Shown here are Austen along with artists Ben Woolcombe and Lew Summers.
The artist is a receptacle for emotions derived from anywhere: from the sky, from the earth, from a piece of paper, from a passing figure, from a spider’s web. This is ’s web. This is why one must not make a distinction between things. For them there are no aristocratic quarterings. One must take things where one finds them.
Picasso/ Quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock -, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 258 (translation Daphne Woodward)
thanks for passing this on…ben