She Blogs and Tweets: 'Almost Octogenarian' Goes High-Tech

When Samantha Luvisi tells people about her technologically-talented grandmother, they’re always impressed.

“Everyone I tell, they say, ‘My grandparents don’t even know what the Internet is,’” said Samantha.

That’s not the case with her grandmother, June Luvisi. At 79 years old, June is not only active on Facebook and Twitter but also spends much of her time blogging and sharing her art on “June Luvisi Art: Art and musings of an almost octogenarian.”

“She’s really into it,” said Samantha, who helped her grandmother set up her blog at juneluvisiart.com. “She loves it. She thinks that the blog is like her life. She’ll sit in front of a computer all day.”

Initially, June said she wasn’t too keen on the idea of being active on the Internet.

“I hated the whole idea,” she said. “But then I got little tastes of it and met some interesting people on the blogosphere. I said, 'Well, hey, this opens up a whole new world.'”

She then took on an all-or-nothing sort of attitude toward the Internet.

“My attitude in approaching all of this was that I wanted to try everything I can,” June said.

Young people, she said, “just plunge right in. At first, I never thought I would learn it.”

Before she knew it, June had Facebook and Twitter pages, and Samantha helped with all of it.

“I’m so glad I was able to participate in this,” said June. “Everything just seems to be getting so new and different.”

June has always been an artist, writer and lover of literature. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology, initially intent on becoming a social worker. After college, June got married and was a stay-at-home mom. She has four children and 13 grandchildren.

As a stay-at-home mom, June took painting classes to perfect her craft.
“I always could draw and paint, but I needed to learn techniques,” she said.

June displays her art on her website for visitors to enjoy. She said the inspiration for her artwork comes from “many different things - whatever is striking me at the moment.”

“I found that I have to be true to myself when I paint rather than keep up with some trend,” she said.

June loves painting portraits, whether of friends or family. Her Lake Forest home is itself a gallery of her work, with many paintings of her grandchildren adorning the walls.

“I work a lot from photographs,” said June.

She has used photographs to paint everything from a portrait of friends from Germany to Jackson Square in New Orleans. Mostly working in watercolors and pastels, June also enjoys painting flowers and still life, including a basket of fruit in her kitchen.

“I enjoy creating, having an image in my mind of what I want to do and seeing it come together,” said June. “Even when I was a little girl, I just always had this urge to draw and paint.”

Not only has June sold some of her paintings, but her work is also displayed both locally and nationally. A portrait painting of the Rev. William McNulty, former pastor at St. Patrick’s Church in Lake Forest, hangs at the church. Other paintings are displayed in private collections all over the United States and Europe.

While June still paints regularly, these days, most of her time is taken up by her blog.

“I love both - writing and painting,” she said.

June went back to school in her 40s to earn a Master’s degree in English literature. “In my 40s, I found I had this deep interest in creative writing,” she said.

June worked as an English teacher at Harper College in Palatine for six years before leaving the profession to travel with her husband. “And I thought I’d graded enough papers,” she said.

She now puts her love of creative writing on the Internet.  In her “Chicago Daze” blog, June writes about everything from her childhood to motoring around southern France 20 years ago.

In one post, she waxes poetic on a candy store named Pop’s that was located across from her grade school, Spencer School, in Chicago. Pop’s, June writes, offered goodies like “gigantic, garishly colored jaw breakers, ruby red and shiny licorice twists, pastel candy buttons on long, narrow strips of white paper, black crows, red cinnamon coins, brightly wrapped bubble gum, peanut butter kisses, and my personal favorite, boxes of salty, white-frosted pumpkin seeds.”

It was at Pop's that June bought Wisconsin brick cheese for her mom that ended up being muenster instead.

“Not a big deal to my mom. However, I guess it was a big disappointment to me. Here I am telling you about it, right,” June writes. “And I still wonder what my mom had against muenster cheese!”

She also talks about her dad’s hat, comparing it to today’s piercing and tattoos.
“They’re both meant to say, ‘This is me and I identify with certain ideas,’” June writes.

One reader commented that although he is “not a ‘touchy-feely’ kind of guy,” he finds that June’s blog “has warmth and humor.”

June loves interacting with people in this way, especially since she has a harder time moving around these days.

“This is the way I walk around in the world, right here.”