At 93, Annatjie Laurie has changed the way she paints.

Holding a traditional palette has become difficult, so she now prefers watercolours.

The painting didn't stop. The method simply changed.

Earlier this year, Annatjie completed two years of art-counselling studies through the Art Healing Academy, finishing cum laude. She turns 94 on 25 August.

A Chance to Study Came Much Later

Annatjie grew up in the Ermelo district and lost her father before she was ten. With little money at home, further study wasn't an option.

Art, however, was already part of her life.

She remembers drawing before she could write. One of her earliest requests came from a farmworker who asked her to draw fish that he could cut from metal and attach to his bicycle.

Decades later, when the opportunity to study art counselling came along, Annatjie took it.

For two years, she submitted an assignment every month. She says having something challenging to work towards helped keep her driven.

“I Choose to Live”

Her life has included some very difficult chapters.

Annatjie describes surviving a serious head injury that required emergency brain surgery and a long recovery.

During that time, she came across psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. His writing about our ability to choose how we respond to circumstances struck a chord.

Annatjie remembers making a decision of her own:

“I choose to live.”

Her Christian faith is also an important part of how she describes her recovery.

Years later, she says she was attacked and robbed in her Pretoria home in 2016 and needed counselling to work through the trauma. More recently, she lost her only daughter to cancer while completing her studies.

There Is Still Art to Make

Today, Annatjie continues to paint and tend her small garden. Once a week, her granddaughter visits and they make art together.

Her practical art-counselling training also gave her the opportunity to work with children and adults. She believes art can help people express things that aren't always easy to put into words.

And when painting the way she used to became physically difficult, she found another way.

Watercolours were waiting.

The Bottom Line

It would be easy to make Annatjie's story about graduating cum laude at 93.

But the qualification is only one part of it.

She didn't get the opportunity to study when she was young. Life brought loss, illness and trauma along the way. Yet, at nearly 94, there are still paintings to make, a garden to tend, and new things worth learning.

Getting older has changed how Annatjie does some things. It hasn't convinced her to stop.