I listened with all my body to a  NPR broadcast: Elizabeth Layton, a seventy year old,depressed housewife took a drawing class and it changed her life.  Layton felt her sadness lift as she used colored pencils to illustrate herself, husband and her everyday life.  I remember thinking "There is hope for me."  

Hope for my depression and because I knew it would take me a long time to achieve my creative goals.

For Layton and me, art is healing.  Like journaling, once you have the sadness and drama down on paper, it's easier to transform, to laugh to see the absurdities and the humor.  Note to self: draw my life situations more often! 

Carmen Herrera was 89 when she sold her first painting.  This 29 minute documentary on Netflix is about her at age 101. Herrera kept making art when no one was noticing her.  I believe that doing art continually plants seeds of hope, light and love each time one says yes to the paint, the poem, the brush, pencil, or piano.  

In this documentary, I was struck by Herrera's methodical and attention to the canvas and paint.  Her very simple compositions speak boldly about the artist. Her choices in color and form  are uncomplicated and captivating.  What a breath of fresh air to see simplicity be so moving.

Susan Ball Faeder

Susan Ball Faedar has been teaching people about the Japanese culture through textiles. Having just finished her last tour there, she is now free to work on her own art.  On my way through Lewisburg I stop to have lunch with my friend.  Our time together  consists of conversations about the time we have left to get out all the creativity we want to express.  

Taking up the 100 day challenge, Susan created small fabric amulets every day for 100 days, which got her focused on a daily-art-making-routine.  It's a great way to transition from work into the "retirement" and creative practice.

When I visited Susan and her show last week, in Lewisburg, I was inspired and encouraged.  Standing in the room filled with her work from years past and including the recent 100 amulet quilts, I recalled our many conversations about the desire and need to make happen what we were  now standing in the middle of.  Current conversations have elevated to possible museum shows.  It just gets better and better.  

Gail, my neighbor and friend of seventy takes me out dancing to the blues bar. She grabs my hand when I come to her house "come see my latest" we journey down to her beading universe filled with stones, gems and a working table. 

Gail turns on her UV lamp, and good podcast before entering the creative flow of beading, knotting and adornment. Into her seventies and still doing very part time work from her home, Gail is making the transition into a world that she has always dreamed of: creative expression.  

Age and art are like wine, they get better with time.  Art is the anti-depressant, therapist, minister and aphrodisiac for all ages.  If you are an artist you know what I'm talking about.  If you wish you were an artist or just playfully creative with a medium, it's never too late to start. 

So...what are you working on?

It takes courage to admit to yourself what you really think and feel about what you are capable of.  At least that is true for me.  When I think about making art, I never just jump up and say oh yeah, let's make a masterpiece right now.  I hope that's what will happen, but then there are so many doubts. 
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The bank page, the vague ideas, the uncertainty that anyone will like my original thinking and processes.   The "I don't know what to do" thing.  The "If I do anything at all, it's got to be the very best and others have to like it" thing.  All paralyzing, self-limiting places from which to begin.  It's depressing, I want to give up and if you are still reading this you probably want to stop reading too.  

That's where the courage comes into play. Those seemingly depressing feelings and thoughts that jump to the forefront are useful and important.  They ask me to consider very practical things: 

~Who am I making art for?
~What do I care about making now?
~Why do I want to make art?
~What are the things I need to have, learn and do?
~How will I begin?

Here are a few answers I have come up with to those very important and useful questions.  I hope they help you too:

~I make art for myself mostly because it makes me happy to be creative.  I always hope others will like my work as well.  If they do not, I have learned if I really like it myself, I don't care what anyone else thinks.  

~What art I want to make changes depending on where I am in life. At times I want to explore a material, or I want to explore a subject like landscapes, flowers, animals or feelings.

~Why I make art is to be happy inside.  I use to think that it would be great to be so good that I would be famous and wealthy.  Now I ask myself: if I did not become famous or wealthy making this art, would I still want to make it.  Answer is always yes.

~The things I need to learn, do and have change depending on what I want to explore.  Right now I am exploring another collage series and what I need to do is:
organize my papers,
clear the space to work
decide what type of collage is speaking to me
Get materials out
Look at the book I found on the shelf about mixed media

How I will begin will become informed as I do the above things to get ready for making more creative collages.  One thing will lead to another in the process of discovery.  I'll ke a few things I really love and a lot more I feel okay about.

After looking at all the art I've made I'll need more courage.  I
just finished a series of collages made from some decorative papers and watercolors.  As I assembled the compositions and glued them together, I was totally excited.  After they were all finished, I rather liked a few of them, and really felt I'd made some not great decisions in several.  Courage, it's okay, not every single thing has to turn out to be the best.  

A good friend of mine once gave me the most useful advice which I pass on here to you:  "When starting out, it's not quality but quantity that matters.  Quality will come as quantity is achieved.

Take courage and face your fears (which are often unrealistic) and get started by thinking practically about what is important for you to achieve. If you don't know where to begin and if you just want to get started doing something fun that won't require a lot of set up and thought, see this article on Begin Again.

Below are the recent collages I made.

Joyfull creativity to you now and every day.

In ceramic class my mantra was "why am I here, what am I doing, and who cares"?  I talked with a very wise woman teacher/ceramic artist: Kathlyn Avila-Reyes about my funk.  

"Oh yes, I have been through that too," She explained, "The way I approach art is different now. It used to be that it just flowed out of me and it was all exciting all the time."  but now, like me she would make something, and she'd look at it and think "so what?"
 
"It's coming back slowly now" Kat said, "but it's not the same.  My advice is just keep working every day, it will return slowly". 

That's what I'd been doing in my ceramics class as I wondered about the way I was feeling.  I kept showing up and working.  At one point I was looking at the scraps of clay left over from my project and I began to see animal shapes.

As I assembled these animals, I went through a process which is hard for me to talk about.  My father was in nursing care.  When I cut the clay to make pieces  fit together, I felt like I was taking a piece of him.  I don't know why, it just felt that way. 

The creatures I made were whimsical and fun, they each seemed to have a story, a life, a presence.  While making them I was in an awful mud-mind, but then I'd look at them and smile.  Even the kiln team members would tell me how much they enjoyed firing these critters. 

My father was fun, had stories and was always joyful.  I felt it was him helping me.  I still feel these animals are a manifestation of his spirit coming through in my art.
 
If you are like me, and Kat and other people of a certain age trying to make your art and wondering about where the juice went, you are not alone. 

In the book Transitions, making sense of life's transitions by William Bridges, the author states "The loss of interest in the accomplishments that motivated your life's first half is matched by a growth of interest in psychological and spiritual matters." 

As we get older we need more personally meaningful activities.  Williams mentions that it is often our decision to develop ourselves that becomes our main focus in later years as we leave behind the goals of the world's definition of success.

I find this statement to be true for myself.  It's important for me to develop my own skills in art as well as teaching.  These things are important for me to do well because I came here with these two  gifts and I want to leave having used the tools to the fullest of their potential.

As I work through the transition of excited all the time to "so what" I am learning.  It's different to work to please myself only and to not please others, or care.  I can see that I can make nice things, fun things, creative things, but my intention is not to market or sell. 

I simply enjoy the process of being creative.  That would be seen as failure - to have skill and talent and to not "do something with it."  And to that I can say, "well, I just do it because I enjoy it, so what?"

If you are going through a similar slump, it's okay.  I've continued to speak with more older woman who remember this time as a transitional moment in life when it's just not as easy to create as it used to be.  But now, they are thriving and living fully creative lives.  

I hope this is helpful no matter your age.  Blocks and slumps are part of life and part of art.  Working through it is important for growth into the new stage of creativity.