Older, but still Creative: A Blog by Warren Bull
For some people creativity continues through their entire lifetime. One example is Ashley Bryan, a Maine artist who died shortly before his 99th birthday. On July 13, in 1962, he became the first Black American to publish a children’s book as both author and illustrator. “Each day,” he said, “I look forward to finding the child in myself who’s anxious to create something new and wonderful.” (see the links below for more information.)
He pretended to be a child in order to write and illustrate his books.
He was rejected from art school because of his race and faced racism as a soldier in World War II. “Each challenge allowed me to use art to help me understand what I was experiencing,” Bryan said, “turning adversity into triumph.”
After a pandemic absence, Bryan returned to his studio on Little Cranberry Island in Maine, saying, “I always have ideas whirling in my head. My passion for being creative will never cease.”
He won many awards. He won thirteen Coretta Scott King Awards, more than any other writer. His legacy lives on in the Ashley Bryan Center.
https://ashleybryancenter.org/
One of the many articles about him is viewable on the link below.
And, on this link, you can hear him talk about his work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b359TH4-61g&ab_channel=Simon%26SchusterBooks
Imogene Cunningham is another long-time creative person. In the spring of 1915, she scandalized the world of photography with a series of soft-focused sepia-toned photos of a nude. What made it shocking was that the photos were of her husband. A woman photographer displaying a sense of desire toward a man was unheard of. For seven decades she skewered the conservative art world with diversity and by pursuing a changing list of images according to her personal vision.
She was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1883. She studied the science of photography, the optics of lenses, the chemistry of developing and toning as well as printing techniques at the University of Washington, which at the time did not have a photography department.
She focused on flowers and plants while caring for her children explaining, “The reason I turned to plants was because I couldn’t get out of my own backyard when they [her children] were small.”
She was noted for taking portraits using “antique” techniques like wet plate collodion ambrotypes. She started doing street photography in her 70s through her 80s. Cunningham started a new series of images of nonagenarians at age 90. Asked which photo was her favorite at age 93, two months before her death, she replied. “The one I’m going to take tomorrow.”
To hear her talk about her work watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcyOelpBw5Q&ab_channel=LumiereGallery
I think creativity in older folks (myself included) is on normal, in fact, I think it's the natural way of things. If you think about it, youth is all about growing up and education. Most folks then do the love boat thing getting partners with marriage and starting and raising families. Then, we're consumed to get the kids through school and work for retirement, etc. Our entire lives we are too busy to be creative. And when we are older, hopefully we are wiser so when we do create something, it has more impact.
ReplyDelete