The Middle-Aged Artist
It’s not grey hair - it’s vintage blonde!
Hello and welcome to my thoughts about being a middle-aged artist ! Along with the grey hair, a few laughter lines (ok, a LOT of laughter lines) and a large drop of forgetfulness I’m going to write about how I’ve found life at the pointy end - of a brush that is !
Let’s start with that “middle-aged” bit. I’m not really sure what middle age is exactly. When I was 15, anyone over 30 seemed old and may parents and grandparents were ancient. Now I’m on the other side so to speak, the goal-posts seem to keep shifting, so I’m not sure if being middle-aged is a real this or not…
However, my life muddled along quite happily until four years ago when I suddenly decided that I needed a change of direction. Menopause had not been kind to my emotions or patience. At the time I was teaching young children under two years of age - so this was not a good thing ! I found myself increasing impatient, in tears, not coping and not sleeping.
I began to think of what to do next. Where was my life going ? What did I still want to do? SO maybe that’s the real mid-life crisis, wanting change. To be fair, I think this could happen at any time in your life and possibly more than once.
Anyway after some thinking and tearful conversations with my family, I decided I wanted to go at Art School. Not to become an “artist” - but because I knew there was so much to learn and wanted to find out stuff I didn’t know. (Turns out there was a LOT of stuff I didn’t know and still don’t !!)
The first day was hard. I sat in the car and cried. I wondered what the hell I was doing there. I felt like a fraud. Too old. No talent. All of those things. But somehow I got out of the car and did go in, and kept going for three years ! I made it through the Covid lockdowns (trying to do zoom classes and make stuff at home), exams, group projects, research and essays, struggling with everything at times.
I also found an amazing group of people where age didn’t matter. Where you could push your creativity and still find out that you could do more. I loved it, and at the same time, occasionally hated it and almost gave up. I learned so much but also realised that there would always be more to know.
So here I am, almost a year on and trying to make it all work in the ‘real” world. Artist. Employee. Mother. Wife. All those bits plus just being me. Middle-aged me and all that it entails !
