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Reinventing Oneself Creatively
After Retirement
The other day I ran into an acquaintance at the Farmer’s Market as we were both picking through the multi-colored Heirloom tomatoes. She was someone I had worked with many years ago and it was good to see her again.
She told me with a big grin that she was soon to retire from her corporate job, about her excitement mixed with some trepidation. She had painted in earlier years but because of work commitments and family, her art had gone by the wayside. She was eager to get back to it and imagined joining classes, meeting new women friends, even showing her art in local cafes.
I shared with her the work I’d been doing the last years, that I was doing personal histories of older women artists, even wrote a book and had a film made about my work and the women I had interviewed. Given the fact that many Boomers will have the opportunity to live into their eighties and nineties -- half of people 65 today will live to 85 -- I am fascinated by the many opportunities people now have available to them in order to reinvent themselves. It’s never too late to start something new.
The research about creativity in later years is growing rapidly. There is ample evidence pointing to increased health when we are engaged in creative activity. And our brains - because of brain plasticity (flexibility) - seem well adapted to continue adding dendrites, or neural connections, throughout our lifespan. It means that unlike some other mental functions that can atrophy, such as eye-hand coordination, or visual processing, we do not diminish in our abilities to be creative, but rather, can expand as we age.
Because of new neuro-imaging techniques we have learned this information only in the last 5 years. Formerly, we did not know how agile our brains were. Dr. Gene Cohen, Director of the Center on Aging at George Washington University is spearheading national conversations about his findings. Over a period of two years he studied 3 sets of subjects with controls – one group attending a painting class, another in a chorus, and the third in an intergenerational storytelling group. All the subjects studied were in a social setting. The average age was 80.
The findings indicate that the subjects in all the groups, as opposed to the controls, have better overall health, visit Drs. less frequently, use fewer prescription drugs, and are less depressed. Not surprising. It’s a hunch we have had, but now there’s medical proof. If you’re active, and do something creative that you love to do, you will feel better.
My new friend, or old acquaintance, couldn’t have been happier. She left the market with an even bigger grin and with grand ideas of how to transform her dining room into her new art studio.
Amy Gorman, M.A., M.S.W.
Author, Aging Artfully: 12 Profiles of Visual and Performing Artists 85-105
PAL Publishing
Berkeley, CA 94707
www.AgingArtfully.com
amygorman@sbcglobal.net
510-527-4977
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