Art Scene

June 24, 2025 – Published in Design & Decor Spring-Summer 2022 issue

The persevering nonagenarian - Carmen Gaffiero

At age 92, Carmen Gaffiero has been through a lot. Through a checkered life that has had its ups and its downs, her hobbies have always been her life savers.

Mother of four, grandmother of seven and great grand mother to six adorable grandchildren, the youngest just a few months old, Carmen today fills her day with her latest hobby; sketching Zentangle designs. 

Her love for flowers is clear as it is evident in many of her works. She discovered the artistic side of flowers back in the seventies when she joined the Ikebana Chapter started by her dear friend, Miriam England. Here, every flower arrangement was a work of art with its own distinct meaning.

Carmen highlights one of her life’s milestones occurred when she joined the Charismatics prayer group. This served as a time of recollection and changes and made every day a new day.

Throughout her life there has always been some hobby. Whether it was art, cooking (that was one of her foremost hobbies), flower arranging, interior design, dolls’ house building, playing card games such as rummy or bridge or simply sketching, she always found satisfaction in these past-times.

Until recently, and till age 90, Carmen religiously played bridge two afternoons a week. She feels that bridge should be thought to all youngsters in secondary school. This she says, would help them develop their thinking skills and create an alternative to time spent on social media. Her love affair with bridge started over forty years back whilst living in Nigeria. Sadly, this ended with the arrival of the pandemic. Pandemic rules together with the fear of catching the virus brought an unlikely end to her bridge playing days. 

Also, until recently, Carmen was very much into her paintings. 

A passion that started at a very young age, painting has been an on/off hobby throughout her life. Her last work being two large acrylics commissioned by one of her children at the free family rate. Sadly however, this hobby too has had to be packed away as it became too tiring.  

But sure enough, Carmen does not take sitting back and doing nothing lightly; she perseveres. With her tablet always by her side and her favourite App, YouTUBE, she has found a new lifesaver. 

Her favourite YouTUBE theme is Art and Design. Through YouTUBE she recently discovered Zentangle. 

A post on Facebook of one of her Zentangle designs by a son of hers (Carmen refuses to open a personal Facebook page) prompted me to write this article. More than the fact that it was made by a nonagenarian with weak eyesight, it is impressive in its sheer beauty. 

Carmen insists that she is an amateur at everything that she does and is happy to do so as long as it gives her pleasure and satisfaction.