I'm Old, Why Bother?

here's why

(This is an older (but still interesting and inspiring) post for you while I am away teaching at the Houston Quilt Festival.)

“One afternoon in 1772, Mary Delany noticed how a piece of coloured paper matched the dropped petal of a geranium. She lifted a pair of filigree-handled scissors – the kind that must have had a nose so sharp and delicate that you could almost imagine it picking up a scent. With the instrument in her hand, she began to maneuver, carefully cutting the exact geranium petal shape from the scarlet paper.” (The Telegraph)

In 1772, we began fighting the Revolutionary War. It was also the year oxygen was scientifically discovered. What I find most amazing of all is that in 1772, Mary Delany was 72. Mary Delany “invented” mixed media art at the age of 72. [I’ll be 72 in 2 weeks.]

See if this sounds typical to you: on a good day, I have the energy and spirit of my 35-year-old self. On a “bad” day, when my hands ache and my energy wanes (or disappears), I consider myself old. I have even been heard to say, “I’m old, so why bother.” Fortunately, most of the time, I operate, plan, dream, and scheme like my 35-year-old self. It’s only when I catch my reflection in the mirror that I remember I am not.

Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise. Margaret Atwood

Actually, it’s only my body that is getting old. I am ageless. I attribute my youthful spirit in part to the fact that I live my passion. As artists, when we create, we tap into the ultimate fountain of youth and never lose our childlike sense of wonder.

Artists spin straw into gold, make something out of nothing. Mary Delany used tissue paper, watercolor, and glue to create mixed media collage art that is now housed in the British Museum. I don’t think it ever dawned on her that she was too old to try something new. “I have invented a new way of imitating flowers,” she wrote with astonishing understatement to her niece in 1772. Mary just followed her passion for botany and art. She was only forced to stop at the age of 88 when she began to lose her eyesight.

It is so easy today to feel old, especially in our youth-centered culture. Botox and anti-aging creams are marketed to women in their 40s. My 30-something daughters are already worrying over their wrinkles. I’m not always happy when I see my smile lines, but then I smile because they are smile lines, and even better, smile lines disappear when you smile!

The bottom line is that next time you think you’re too old or you feel old, tap into the fountain of youth we call art.

P.S. Mary’s story is both historically interesting and inspiring. I was inspired to learn more and ordered The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life’s Work at 72.

Want to know how she created her collages? Here’s an excerpt from the 2011 Telegraph article, A collage education: the woman who reinvented nature:

“Mrs Delany dubbed her paper and petal paste-ups 'flower mosaicks', and in the next 10 years she completed nearly 1,000 cut-paper botanicals so accurate that botanists still refer to them – each one so energetically dramatic that it seems to leap out from the dark as on to a lit stage.

Unlike pale botanical drawings, they are all done on deep black backgrounds. She drenched the front of white laid paper with black watercolour to obtain a stage-curtain-like darkness. Once the paper was dry she’d paste on to these backgrounds hundreds of the tiniest dots, squiggles, scoops, moons, slivers, islands and loops of brightly coloured paper, slowly building up the verisimilitude of flora.

According to those who’ve tried to recreate her technique, Mrs Delany used tweezers, a bodkin, perhaps a thin, flat bone folder (shaped like a tongue depressor and made for creasing paper), brushes of various kinds, mortar and pestle for grinding pigment, bowls to contain ox gall (the bile of cows, which when mixed with paint makes it flow more smoothly) and more bowls to contain the honey that would plasticise the pigment for her inky backgrounds, pieces of glass or board to fix her papers, pins to hang her papers to dry. It was a feast for the tactile sense; it was dirty, smelly, prodigious.”

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Age is not an excuse for not following your creative heart.

I’d love to hear what you have to say about art and age. Your thoughts and comments feed my youthful soul.

Quote of the Week

People give up if they don’t have a goal. When you’re young you have all these goals, but then you start dropping them and wanting to stay with the status quo. That ages you. When people have meaning in their lives, when they have a purpose, that’s more anti-aging than anything.
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