A Hero
Our heros reveal something about us. They can reveal our interest, and our priorities. We shape ourselves by those we admire and emulate.
Today, September 7th, is the birthday of one of my heros: Grandma Moses. Anna Mary Robertson Moses was born in 1860 and died in 1961. She began painting at 78 and ceased painting just before her death.
Opportunity
Perhaps I can enourage creativity at any age by chronicling creative freeways (what’s the opposite of a barrier?) in my locality:
Nancy McLaughlin in The News & Record profiled an effort to have singers share their love of music with the community in a new community chorus.
What Are Your Barriers?
So I’m relaxing, reading a fantasy magazine (okay, Country Living) and there is a two page spread on traditional crafts - rag rugs. The text prosiacly describes their necessity - cold floors, long winter evenings, and rags torn from old clothes. The photos show something else entirely.Whimsical or serious, abstract or concrete, it’s art you most often just wipe your feet on.
And this brought me to think…our ancestors were life-long creators, partly out of necessity. To keep your feet warm or to hear music, someone had to create it. Are we life-long creators? No! We’re consumers. We’re passive. In complete contrast to almost everyone 75 or more years ago.
The question is what to do. And the one that occurs to me first is to think about what are the barriers to creative activities. And it’s easy to develop a list; it’s just not sufficient. So here goes the start of my list
Time
Inclination – that is what interests me.
Opportunity
Cost
Experience
What’s Yours?
Another voice
I can’t quite imagine the thoughts and feelings of Charles Darwin when he learned of a rival’s simultaneous articulation of the origin of species by natural selection. Reasonable scholars have identified it as ‘dawning horror’. For me, discoering that others write the same things I think is the opposite. I see something more akin to burgeoning satisfaction. I felt that when I tripped over Jan Greenberg’s post Writing, Creativity and Aging on the blog I.N.K. (Interesting Nonfiction for Kids).
Jan writes of her own challenges to write for young adults as she is aging and how considering how others have aged creatively (great artists are always great company) has solidified her resolve to do the same. What worked? She mentions a new subject, a new discipline, and a new view (in this case of the world). Interesting, yes; inspiring, absolutely!
What is the difference?
What is the difference between a mantra and a bumper-sticker? I’ve never before needed to ponder that question but now I do. Pithy statements perceived to be of importance; okay that’s the same. But…what if anything is the difference. Time will tell.
Sherri Lynn Wood is an artist, especially if your definition of the role includes provoking thought. Her work in a show at the Weatherspoon Gallery at UNCG and upcoming workshop Group-Stitching Mantra is intriguing. More soon. After I’ve group-stitched a mantra or two.
Another insight into the brain
Traumatic brain injury rightfully captures much media attention at the moment, courtesy, in part, of the struggles of service personnel and military veterans. The New York Times today (August 9, 2009) covers this interesting and important topic on the front page in an article, Brain Power: After Injury, Fighting to Regain a Sense of Self. The insights gained as people, often young, strive to force the brain to learn anew offers an amazing story but also a lesson in the dynamic possibilities of the brain. And while it is important to emphasize that these possibilities are life-long, this quotation resonates with me:
“The brain is ‘plastic,’ recent research suggests; intact areas can recruit nearby, healthy brain tissue to bypass damage and compensate for lost function.
It does not seem to happen, however, without effort; to reroute signal traffic down back channels, the brain needs traffic, scientists say. It needs to be active, solving problems, meeting social expectations.”
This is brain fitness in another guise! This is one of the main points to active, successful, healthy, and creative aging! The author goes on:
“In studies of dementia, researchers have found that some people who are lucid until a very old age have brains that appear riddled with Alzheimer’s disease. Many of them remain social to the end, engaged in regular card games or debates with friends who make mental demands of them.”
This is it! This is the power of “enriched environments”, to borrow a phrase from the Living Well with Memory Loss conference I attended last week.
Thoughts on the Memory Loss Conference at UNCG
Yesterday spent a roller-coaster of a day at the Living Well with Memory Loss conference sponsored by the dynamically impressive Dr. Linda Buettner at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. It felt a little like trying to take a drink from a fire hydrant: so much energy, enthusiasm and expertise compressed into so little time and space. But worth it!
Noteworthy things that come to mind immediately: the incredible competence and passion with issue has ignited in presenters and audience alike. Almost everyone I heard (in the audience) admitted to having a direct personal connection to this disease and yet a powerful presentation was on the stigma felt by people with dementia and their caregivers; the fact that drug treatments can slow progression and that non-pharmacological treatments do exist and yet most people diagnosed with dementia do learn receive information about complementary therapies at the time of diagnosis. And there’s more…
From The Wine of Life
“What I discovered then, without really understanding what I was discovering, is that to survive we only need food, clothing and shelter but to live we need art.”
Rachel Popowich, drama teacher and Director of the West County Players wrote this in a viewpoint The Wine of Life in a recent issue of the Shelburne Falls & West County Independent (this is only a placeholder for the paper which will come back on line in due time).
Need Art to Live
I am looking for a better quote than this is a paraphrase but recently I read that while we need food and shelter to survive, we need art to live.
Does anything more need to be said?
leave a comment