Want to Paint? It is Not Too Late!
I wanted to share this video with you because I meet so many aspiring artists who think they've missed their opportunity to create art.
Video transcript
Trudy Smith didn’t start painting until she was 85 years old. She’s 102 now and still going strong.
Trudy lives in Western Australia and didn’t take up art until the death of her husband, whose criticism had kept her from painting.
A few things struck me about this story and I could have written about any of them. This post could be about how we shouldn’t let someone else keep us down, for example, or it could be about the idea that creativity keeps us young.
But what this story really made me think about is all the people who tell me that they feel it’s too late for them, that they have wasted too much time.
I must admit to having had these thoughts myself. I only started getting serious about my art at the age of 50, and I didn’t turn full-time until this year, aged 56. “What if I had started younger,” this thought usually goes. “Just think how much better I would be. What might I have achieved by now?”
But if I am lucky enough to live as long as Trudy, that means I still have almost half my life to live. And even if I only make it to 65, I will still have had 15 years of painting.
And of course, the past is gone anyway. All we ever have is the present moment – so why not fill that time doing something we love?
But what I really want to say is this: Many people find their lives shrinking as they get older. Their options are dwindling – life has already decided what kind of job they have and what kind of family and where they’ll live … there’s often this sense that their world is growing smaller. But this isn’t the case for artists – art-making is an ongoing exploration – a perpetual process of growth and learning. We are on a journey of discovery that doesn’t end until we do. And the longer we make our art, the better we get at it, so the more satisfaction there is to be had.
What a gift we have been given! I don’t mean the gift of talent – I think everyone has the ability to make art – I mean the gift of the desire to make art.
Just think what Trudy could have made
Just imagine if Trudy had paid less attention to her husband’s opinion of her work. Imagine if she had shrugged off any negative comments and got on with painting. Going even further back, imagine if her parents had encouraged her creative talent instead of deterring her from art. Had these things happened, she might have produced hundreds more paintings. She certainly would have experienced hundreds (thousands?) of hours of pleasure.
You may have all kinds of reasons not to make art – you may have been discouraged when you were younger, you may have suffered damaging critiques in art school, or you may have friends, family members or a spouse who put your efforts down.
And even if none of these things is the case for you, you might just keep yourself down out of fear. You may fear failure. You may worry that you can’t learn the skills you need. Or you may worry that you will expose too much of yourself. Or you might have some other reason – Lord knows, human beings can come up with countless reasons NOT to do something. But if this is you, Trudy Smith has some great advice:
“Sometimes you think shall I do something: shall I move? Shall I get married? Should I have another child?” she says. “When I have had that feeling of ‘shall I?’ – the answer is always ‘yes.'”
So what do you say … shall we make some art?
If you’d like to learn more about my artist community, visit this page.