Once I spent a delightful afternoon visiting galleries in Asheville North Carolina. At one boutique gallery the owner told me about an artist whose whimsical sculptures I was enjoying. He said, “She is an artist in her 80’s who has brought us her sculptures for several years. Her process is quite physical and labor intensive, requiring the help of younger assistants to lift the pieces in and out of the kiln and transport them to the gallery.”
When 2008 came along and its subsequent quashing of disposable income, she no longer could afford to pay her assistants. So what did she do? I don’t know, but somehow she figured out a way to continue to produce her work and bring it to the gallery. In fact, he told me with a smile, all she talks about when she brings in new work is “What she’s building next” and what her future pieces will be like.
This woman is obviously persisting in spite of of her age, circumstances, the economy, or anything else that can potentially cause artists to freeze in their tracks. There is a lot to be said for the resolve of an artist to produce work. That mental resolve is a skill set for sure; a survival skill.
And as I gracefully age I am more and more aware of the need for this survival skill.
My 93 year old mom is a wonderful example of aging gracefully. That being said, she is 93 and does deal with challenges commensurate with her age. Because she is a prolific reader and has several reading spaces in her home, she is always leaving her glasses behind. She then spends an inordinate amount of time looking for them (which is compounded by not being able to see because she doesn’t have her glasses.) I suggested to her that she let me make a neat beaded glasses holder so that she can wear her glasses around her neck. Her response was “Oh I don’t want that. Those are for old people!” Okay, so to her 93 is not old, and I certainly wouldn’t want her to do or wear anything that might cause her to be perceived as such!
What happens as natural aging occurs is that we become much more cognizant of the brevity of life. At 20 or 30, we have our whole life before us like a blank canvas rife with indestructible possibility. That canvas is still there in our 50s and 60’s, but it’s no longer blank. In fact, it may be stained, wrinkled, mouse-eaten, mildewed, cracked, or randomly stuffed in the back of a drawer. Point here being, at 63 I am looking out on the horizon of 30 some more years, and that has a sobering finality to it. Not sobering as in morbid, but as in I now need to be doing what I want to do for the rest of my life, not still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.
For an artist, that translates into re-vamp, re-visit, re-think, renovate, refresh, renew!!
Recently at a show, I was telling a customer about the humble beginnings of my Parts of Art jewelry. I started the story as I often do, by saying “ Thirty years ago I had a shop where I hand painted clothes.” The rest of the story describes how in my hand painted clothing shop, I always used the same palette for my acrylic paints, and as the paint built up in layers and dried, I started peeling it and making it into jewelry. But before I could even get to that part of the story, she interrupted, grabbed my arm, and said “PLEASE tell my you are getting back into hand painting clothes, because I have been looking for an artist that does that!!!”
So of course that got me thinking. I decided to pull out the denim duster I still have from back in the day and throw some paint on it. Of course the process of putting paint on a denim coat, which I haven’t done for 30 years, brought back a flood of memories from 1989 when I had that shop. Be still, my heart! Now my mind is so amped with ideas and designs and what to do next that I can hardly sleep. I could happily do this for the rest of my life!
So this is me aging gracefully, paintbrush in hand.
Re-vamp, re-visit, re-think, renovate, refresh, renew!!
When 2008 came along and its subsequent quashing of disposable income, she no longer could afford to pay her assistants. So what did she do? I don’t know, but somehow she figured out a way to continue to produce her work and bring it to the gallery. In fact, he told me with a smile, all she talks about when she brings in new work is “What she’s building next” and what her future pieces will be like.
This woman is obviously persisting in spite of of her age, circumstances, the economy, or anything else that can potentially cause artists to freeze in their tracks. There is a lot to be said for the resolve of an artist to produce work. That mental resolve is a skill set for sure; a survival skill.
And as I gracefully age I am more and more aware of the need for this survival skill.
My 93 year old mom is a wonderful example of aging gracefully. That being said, she is 93 and does deal with challenges commensurate with her age. Because she is a prolific reader and has several reading spaces in her home, she is always leaving her glasses behind. She then spends an inordinate amount of time looking for them (which is compounded by not being able to see because she doesn’t have her glasses.) I suggested to her that she let me make a neat beaded glasses holder so that she can wear her glasses around her neck. Her response was “Oh I don’t want that. Those are for old people!” Okay, so to her 93 is not old, and I certainly wouldn’t want her to do or wear anything that might cause her to be perceived as such!
What happens as natural aging occurs is that we become much more cognizant of the brevity of life. At 20 or 30, we have our whole life before us like a blank canvas rife with indestructible possibility. That canvas is still there in our 50s and 60’s, but it’s no longer blank. In fact, it may be stained, wrinkled, mouse-eaten, mildewed, cracked, or randomly stuffed in the back of a drawer. Point here being, at 63 I am looking out on the horizon of 30 some more years, and that has a sobering finality to it. Not sobering as in morbid, but as in I now need to be doing what I want to do for the rest of my life, not still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.
For an artist, that translates into re-vamp, re-visit, re-think, renovate, refresh, renew!!
Recently at a show, I was telling a customer about the humble beginnings of my Parts of Art jewelry. I started the story as I often do, by saying “ Thirty years ago I had a shop where I hand painted clothes.” The rest of the story describes how in my hand painted clothing shop, I always used the same palette for my acrylic paints, and as the paint built up in layers and dried, I started peeling it and making it into jewelry. But before I could even get to that part of the story, she interrupted, grabbed my arm, and said “PLEASE tell my you are getting back into hand painting clothes, because I have been looking for an artist that does that!!!”
So of course that got me thinking. I decided to pull out the denim duster I still have from back in the day and throw some paint on it. Of course the process of putting paint on a denim coat, which I haven’t done for 30 years, brought back a flood of memories from 1989 when I had that shop. Be still, my heart! Now my mind is so amped with ideas and designs and what to do next that I can hardly sleep. I could happily do this for the rest of my life!
So this is me aging gracefully, paintbrush in hand.
Re-vamp, re-visit, re-think, renovate, refresh, renew!!
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