50 things to do in your 50s: 7 - The Artist's Way
I just read a post that began with the line “I get tired of ‘under 40s’ lists. Show me someone who got their PHD at 60 after losing everything. Give me a 70 year old debut novelist who writes from a lifetime of love and grief. Give me calloused hands and tender hearts.”
I’m home from a film challenge which had in it’s contestants many young people. The combination of competing and art is never ideal and yet we need the awards and accolades and for our Cvs as even creativity is part of the machine. Productivity and reward as mechanism for recognition is hard to get away from. We cheered on the talented film-makers, I was one of them, and we praised the talent of youth.
I mused to myself why so much emphasis is put on the wonders of youthful creativity when it is young people, being closer to childhood, who are more likely to allow themselves ‘play’ time. What is art but creative play? When we play we make things up, create stories, playing with dolls is theatre, painting is, well, it’s painting. The putting away of childhood things is expected when you get to about sixteen or so and many of us look back sadly on the things we used to do and love in our younger days that we no longer have time for now, being out earning. We are the only animals who have to go out and ‘earn’ a right to live.
Think of some of the things you used to love doing as a child…
For me they were writing poems, painting, making up stories and putting on cat theatre where the local felines would have to wear hats I made them out of cupcake cases. Show me a cat who ever does what you tell them, that’s why the cat theatre never took off, so I tell myself.
Artist's Way Coming to the end of a course in creative film production, which really focused more on the paperwork end of the stick than the stories, I offered to facilitate the Artist’s Way, by way of holding onto our regular Monday night meet ups. Only two friends decided to sign up but we three created a wonderfully nurturing and nourishing environment for the ‘recovering creatives’ that we are. For anyone who doesn’t know, the Artist’s Way was written by Julia Cameron and published in the 80s. It is a world renowned book and course, well, the book is a course, 12 weeks of showing up, checking in, doing tasks and much more.
The foundations of the programme are two things: morning pages and artist’s dates. I feel a twinge of Irish guilt when I think that I haven’t taken myself on a pre-organised artist’s date in weeks, must remedy that ( more guilt) . Morning pages are simply that, as soon as you wake up you grab your journal and write three longhand pages of blurb. What kind of blurb? Well, anything at all that comes to mind from, do I want to dye my hair purple to ‘can I really justify hopping on a plane to Naples just to eat pizza? The answer to both those questions is 1. Yes and 2. Yes.
Morning pages are where you dump your inner gobbledegook and we all have it, unless you’ve been meditating for years, who doesn’t have inner garbage? The pages sometimes turn into actual ideas, sometimes poems, always a safe place to dump. Since doing the pages I have less need to trauma dial friends, it’s a place to reflect, to be honest, to be. You may think it’s ok to get up and go about your business and sit and write your pages later in the day but then they are no longer morning pages, just sayin’.
The artist’s date is trickier and I’m not proud (there’s the Paddy in me again) of admitting that I struggle with this one. Given that I have, in theory, a lot of spare time, I often forget to take myself out somewhere with the express purpose of hanging out and doing something nice for a few hours, just me and me. This might be to go to a favourite coffee shop to read a book, go out and take photos, when I last did this intentionally I ended up shooting an award winning short film as a result. You can go to a book shop, take a walk somewhere you wouldn’t otherwise go, take in a movie but you have to be taking yourself out, not just happen to be somewhere nice and then decide that that’s your artist’s date. Your inner artists likes to be romanced, we need it.
On Monday nights we would convene, on Zoom, bless it, it saved our emotional bacon many times. We shared, we cried, we opened up in a safe and cosy place and we always went over time. Each week we had lots of tasks to do and often it was a push to do them but we mostly did and we showed up for each and every session, always in anticipation and never disappointed.
Your 50s is an interesting time. You’re young enough to do new things, in fact doing new things keeps us young, being interested makes us interesting. So many people roam the earth like hungry ghosts, unfulfilled when simply dipping your inner artist’s toe into a pot of paint or doing a bit of dancing in your kitchen may alleviate even a bit of modern living angst and who knows where it might take you. Extended artist’s dates might take you away for a whole day, or a few days, to Naples…Or maybe a month, in New York…who knows?
Get the book, open it, do the programme. A whole new life awaits, inside of you x
I love The Artist's Way. My absolute favourite practice is morning pages - which I've adapted to anytime pages for myself! 💕
Yes, good idea. We don't need any more shoulds and 'must'erbation 😊