Artful Aging

This is my most recent painting. I am so excited because of the class I am teaching on working from a collage to a painting. It has demanded that my skills increase so that I can instruct my students towards their creative goals.

See how I made this painting from a collage!


A lot of us older people, at age 69 me included, feel, and have felt for quite a time, that very few people are addressing us as the older culture that we are.

And even AARP seems clueless. Recently, in their newsletter, they posted several, apparently sound guidelines to getting older better. Among the topics were included” Thirteen luxuries we deserve after fifty, Things we are too old to say, Things to try at least once after fifty and things never to wear again. Already, my ire was peaked from just the titles, (“13 little luxuries we deserve after 50,” “Things we’re too old to say after 50,” “Things to try at least once after 50,” and “Things to never wear again after 50,” but I read on, hoping to be informed and enlightened.

After perusing all, I was hardly enlightened. I was indeed, upset and angered. What? Wear this instead of that? Downsize to a smaller, sporty car? Don’t say, “like”? Get a massage? (at eighty bucks a pop, I don’t think so) a chef –cooked meal, maybe only once a week? I save my chicken bones and boil them for stock for a soup I cook with fresh vegetables to take to work.

Get fabulous teeth? Sure, mine are degrading, but I have no dental insurance, and can’t afford it, either through Medicare or my job at Home Depot.

Another recommended little luxury—get a thing that holds 2,000 songs. Great, I guess I want to listen to, all the time, tons of old hippie tunes, except I have to go to work at the Home Depot, run my website, teach art classes and try to get a body of oil paintings done so I can show them in a gallery….

I have to say, I went into the comments on this article and found out, I was not the only one aggravated by it. Apparently I am as viable a demographic for my age group as anyone.

I lost a lot in the stock market, like many of us did. When the pack of cards came down, it toppled on many of us, old and young. What I have learned is that there are other ways of getting revenues beyond a job.

I started my website, http://www.free-online-art-classes.com the repository of my over forty years of art expertise and knowledge based on my schooling (BFA-Minneapolis College of Art and Design and MFA-Pratt Institute) and experience teaching art privately in various academic venues. I wrote lessons for oil painting, acrylic painting, collage, printmaking, drawing, watercolor, and many more. I wrote them so everyone could easily follow them, step by step, and made them information-rich, so that, by doing the lessons, people could actually learn artful skills and techniques.

What I’ve taken away from the experience of creating and maintaining a website is that by addressing the needs of people, and asking them what they want, I have created a site that meets their needs and serves them. And what I have written in the many art lessons is all freely accessed by whoever wants it, whether they live in Japan, Africa, Indonesia or Alabama.

Older students became a special interest for me, as I approached age 65. I wrote an Artful Life Program six years ago, for a Small Business Class I was taking in western Massachusetts. I had to research the financials, the facilities, and project its workablilty through a five year period. The Artful Life Program is available on my website.

It has been my dream to implement the Artful Life Program in a real setting. I’ve had much input from students who have used it as a model for teaching elder classes, senior groups and community centers. But I have yet to install it myself, in my own facility, equipped with the sinks, tables, chairs, easels, potter’s wheels, drying and ware shelves, kiln, multi-media tables, lockers, skylights, meditation garden and exhibitions space that I recommend in my Program.

I hope that time will come before I reach 70! I’m 69 now, so, yes, there is still time!


Click here to enter the Artful Life Program