He has flexibility towards fine arts.
A tough-as-nails 101-year-old Brooklyn woman took up painting to cope with grief after her daughter’s death — and is churning out detail-oriented art despite being blind in one eye.
Josephine Nigro — who beat the odds by surviving an early case of COVID-19 — brightened up the pages of her adult coloring books with a rainbow of gel pens to deal with life’s stress and sadness.
“It takes you away from reality for a while. It doesn’t promise you a cure…but it promises you a distraction, so that’s my hobby. I like it,” said Nigro, of Borough Park, who was born in Brooklyn in March 1923.
A friend got Nigro — affectionately called Grandma Joe — her first coloring book a decade ago, she said, when her only child, Linda Vitale, died of breast cancer.
“When she died, I thought I was going to go out of my mind,” Nigro said, adding that she needed a way to vent her crushing grief.
“A friend mailed me a coloring book with markers… but I had no artistic ability or desire for it. But since she was kind enough to send it, I (said) I’d try it,” she said, adding that she soon fell in love with the hobby.
Despite not having the sight of one eye, this courageous man now uses a magnifying glass to perfectly color inside the lines with the help of a colleague.
“I can’t really distinguish between orange and other colors, but if I say, give me purple, that’s what they give me and then I balance the colors,” she said, adding that she spends an hour every day. Fills colors till. “It’s all freestyle.”
When The Post met her Friday, the spirited Foggy — who worked as a stenographer in her younger days — was painting a flower while happily singing a Rod Stewart tune.
In 2021, Nigro fell ill with COVID-19, but managed to keep her spirits up with some help from art despite her age.
“I was sick, but it was bearable and I went through normal, but not extreme and I recovered. I made it. I went through it,” she said.
Nigro, who loves fashion and big band music, considers herself lucky to still be mentally sharp.
“Thank God my brain is working. I really don’t feel my age. I don’t pay attention to it. I don’t think about being young…as you get older, just embrace your good fortune,” she said
She encourages herself when she gets down – saying to herself, “Who is that old man? It can’t be me.”
One of her friends, Karen Lewis, called her a firecracker and told lots of interesting stories about her long life.
“She is amazing. He has a lot of courage. I love hearing stories about their lives. She surprises all the time,” Lewis said.
Nigro said his grandson, who is a prosecutor in Virginia, now has his artwork hanging in his office.
Ultimately, he said, the key to a long, happy life is to help other people — and not give up when times get tough.
She said, “I would say be kind to each other, help each other, encourage people and when things aren’t good try to make the best of them, try to do the things you can.” Don’t consider it possible.” ,
“I say stress will get to you, avoid it when possible — and eliminate it where you can,” she said.
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