However old she may be, every woman wants "a room of her own." Chen Ye-li converted an addition built atop her Xizhi apartment building into an art studio and garden for the soul. (Chuang Kung-ju)

After interviewing more than a hundred elderly women, the female Japanese writer Chizuko Ueno discovered that "alone" does not have to mean "lonely," and a "senior" is not necessarily "vulnerable." Someone who is able to live on her own in her autumn years can do so with optimism, grace, and comfort, because women are stronger and more flexible than men in facing their lives.

Grandmotherly painter Chen Ye-li is a perfect example of such a single senior woman.

"My mother has an extraordinary, mysterious strength. She has no problem coping with a life of itinerant sketching. One year, during the procession carrying the idol from Qingshui Temple in the fifth month of the lunar calendar, I spotted my mother in the middle of the crowd, soaking wet but still sketching like mad.

"Another year, during a nighttime procession of the idol, I was so interested that I climbed up to the roof of the fishermen's market with some boys from the village. I wanted to find a place so I could take in the whole night scene. I was out of breath from struggling to get all the way up there by this dangerous fire escape, and... there was my mother again!"

This is Chen Ye-li's third daughter Liu Hsiu-mei, founder of the "Civilian Art" art-education movement, explaining how after age 60 her mother has gone from strength to strength, using art to liberate her life.