4 Ways to Release Your Inner Artist in Your 60s
I never used to think of myself as creative. Artists are creative, and artists paint. I can’t even draw.
But as a child I loved to “play pretend.” I had imaginary friends and few real ones who’d make up stories with me. In 4th grade, a couple of classmates and I wrote a screenplay for our favorite TV show, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. We were the only ones who ever read it, but we edited it together and acted it out with gusto on the school playground for our private audience of four.
Still, in my mind, I wasn’t creative. I kept that mindset for over 50 years.
Then, about five years ago, I went to a wine and painting class and fell in love with moving color across a canvas. Not long after, I began a regular writing practice. My definitions of artist and creativity turned upside down.
We Each Have an Inner Artist Who Longs to Be Free
The dictionary defines creativity as “the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns or relationships; the ability to make new things or have new ideas.” (Notice there’s no mention of drawing the human form or even a straight line.)
Our creativity covers a broad spectrum. We all possess the gifts of being able to look at things in a new way, establish a new pattern. Some creatives can bring these ideas into physical form. More often our creativity resides in our hearts and minds and shows up in the ways we move through the world.
No matter how she appears, when we release our Inner Artist we receive some important reminders.
Embrace a “Beginner’s Mind”
Whether we create a new recipe, a colorful floral arrangement or a painting, the Inner Artist encourages us to begin without knowing exactly how things will turn out.
When our creativity takes the lead, we disregard the old “rules.” We can’t make mistakes, because we’re starting with a blank slate. We can take risks and let go of our need to have all the answers. Most of all, we can lose track of time and even have fun!
Our Inner Artist gives us permission to lighten up and just see what happens next.
Silence Your Inner Critic
It used to be difficult for me to silence my inner critic. I’d rarely attempt anything in life that I didn’t believe I could do well.
As I played with paints, I learned to stop chasing an ideal and to start enjoying what was happening right in front of me. I learned it was safe to let go of perfection. I began defeating that inner critic.
Our Inner Artist encourages kindness, forgiveness and a lack of judgment, especially when it comes to how we treat ourselves.
Take a Step Back
When we get too close to something, we lose perspective. We forget there’s a bigger picture. We can’t, as they say, see the forest for the trees.
Painting and writing demand that I keep taking a step back. Look at the canvas from across the room, leave the room entirely, and come back to the printed page.
Our Inner Artist teaches us the value of shaking up our mindsets and looking at things in new ways. Then she reminds us to pull back and have another look.
Claim Your Creativity
Creativity is unavoidable. Just being alive is a creative act. We’re in constant states of motion and change, adding colors and shading to our already rich lives. Starting, stopping, beginning again.
Our Inner Artist grows as we do. She expresses herself in as many ways as we have ideas, dreams or thoughts. As Maya Angelou so eloquently reminded us, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
And our creativity doesn’t expire. There’s no such thing as “too old” or “too late” to our Inner Artist. All she asks is that we accept the invitation she extends, the one where we create in the spirit of joy and self-love, and that we never hesitate to color outside the lines.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
How are you releasing your Inner Artist at this stage of your life? How are you expressing your creativity? Please join the conversation below!
Tags Creativity
The one that wrote abou the paint party couldof been me the whole storie would lije to save it.
I express my creativity through my photography. I really enjoy taking landscape photos (nature and the world around us). I make the photos into cards and send them to people through the mail (yes regular mail). They enjoy receiving them and seeing places they might not have been to or seen. I am now experimenting with ICM – intentional camera movement photography. It’s fun and I like trying new things.
I waa always interested in Art but ‘I was nit creative’. I took a watercolor course to understand the medium to understand mire what I was looking at.
The instructor was an acquaintance of mine. She was a stiff upper lip, stern Engish woman and a wonderful artist.
Our first lesson was sketching a still life. I was not expecting to have to draw! I seriously had trouble drawing a stick man. She was checking our progress and she got to me. I said ‘I can’t draw.’ Being herself she Said ‘No….you can’t draw’. Then she said…’no one has ever shown you how’ and she proceeded to show me one or two things and away I went.
We were not critiqued on the drawing…thankfully! She told us to make note of the colours of the still life and go home and paint it. The only instruction she gave was not to be afraid of colour.
I went home and started painting…bright orange, bright green, some blues and some purples. My partner at the time asked if it wasn’t too bright. I said I can’t be afraid of colour and these are the colours.
Next glass everyone was proudly showing each other their paintings. I was too embarrassed to show mine. Theirs were great paintings of lovely watery colours that looked so well done. We were told to line the paintings up along the sideboard side by side. More humiliation. There was an audible gasp when I put mine up. It definately did not fit in with the others.
The instructor went around and moved paintings around and put mine at the very end. Dead last.
Then she started from the other end and talked about each painting. Then she got to mine. One woman even patted my shoulder and said ‘its not that bad”. I felt like I was in high-school and I wanted to run out of the room.
She just stared at it for a long time and then turned to us and said,’Whose painting is this?’ With my head lowered, I raised my hand. I was thinking that I was never taking another painting course and embarrassing myself again. She pointed out a few things in my drawing that she would help me with after. Then she said. ‘I love this painting! It’s bright, the colours are exactly what you see in the still life. Sharon is the only one who followed my instructions not to be afraid of colour! Best painting if the week!’. I almost cried. All the others clapped! One of my proudest moments!
That was over 20 years ago! I still don’t paint well, but I am pretty good at drawing. I am NEVER afraid of colour…no pretty, delicate water colour flowers in my paintings…big, bright and bold for me!
That one course with that wonderful stiff and stern English woman gave me confidence to try everything!
I now call myself a mosaic artist and I went to Italy and learned the 2000 year old process of mosaics. I am retired now and am going to spend the rest of my life being ‘my creative self’!
I took a ceramics course at an adult education center and had fun molding the clay with my hands (like in kindergarten!). At the end of the first session, the trainer asked each of us (all women) to share what we had done. Each of the other women, one after another, started by saying, “Well, I’m not creative, but…”. As I listened, I thought it was sad that each woman started by putting herself down. Even sadder, I had planned to say something like that so no one would laugh at my work. So when it was my turn, I said, “I didn’t realize how creative I am. Look at what I did!” Afterward, the other women, and the trainer, said they were so glad to hear that! I’ll never again say that I’m not creative!