A CREATIVE REBIRTH: Artists who Emerge Creatively from Another Career

People have many talents that are seldom realized in their lifetime. Economics is a factor that often cuts in the explorative personality; when making a living counts, when tuition investments matter, when security trumps innovative play-all are reasons to maintain a traditional career stance. But then something happens that stirs the soul to take risk, adventure and seek a creative life. It could be a big inheritance, a medical change or motivation to take a corporate parachute and color it or just an inner need to get a new life rudder.

These are some artists who successfully transitioned from their traditional career roles to a creative life.

       John Creveling was a career coach and was enjoying photography. About the time that he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, he began to draw and paint. “I'm not sure if I discovered art or art discovered me. But I'm loving it every minute, every day, to try to experiment and grow that way.". He continues to create art in different mediums.

·     Dennis Stelz was a champion marksman who almost went blind from spinal surgery complications. He became very depressed. But fortunately, with the support of friends, learned to turn wood and his creative life was born.

·     George Saunders was an environmental engineer who had worked as an oil surveyor, a doorman, a roofer, and a knuckle-puller at a slaughterhouse. He was an avid reader, became a best-selling author and now reputed to be one of the world’s finest short story writers.

·      Lucy Rose Fischer earned a  Ph.D. in sociology and eventually focused on gerontology. She always loved art and, at 60, after her husband’s health scare, she quit being a sociologist and became an artist.

·      Ben Fountain was a lawyer who had taken some creative writing classes in college. His big writing success came with “Brief Encounters” which was eighteen years after he first sat down to write.

        Dr. Earl Briggs was always a doer and innovator. As a dentist, he did his own lab work from inlays to bridges to dentures. Now retired after 43 years, he enjoys painting and making jewelry.

·      Insider Artist Judith Scott was born with Down’s Syndrome and deaf. She was institutionalized at age 7 and, after 35 years, her fraternal twin sister, Joyce, gained legal guardianship. She spent her days at Creative Growth Art Center where she developed a unique talent for creating art that involved wrapping and binding diverse elements together. Although deceased, her work is in collections of major museums.

Everyone has the ability to be creative and, with courage and determination, a whole new part of your life can be launched!


Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative place where no one else has ever been.

Alan Alda

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BASIC CRAFT TECHNIQUES: FROM ORDINARY TO EXTRAORDINARY

It started in a simple way. We were small and eager to learn how to make things. Basic craft skills that we were taught: gluing, knotting and wrapping produced amazing results to our young eyes and so easy to do. Yet as older adults, those once amazing techniques now may seem more banal, dull and elementary.

However for those with physical or cognitive issues, these basic craft techniques remain powerful ways to explore creativity. Although these people are often guided in projects that have minimal challenge yielding results that are also minimally interesting; this can be changed in ways that do not add complexity but does enhance results.

The first example of gluing which, by itself, is taken for granted because it is used so frequently. And then there is the magic of decoupage. Its origin is from Siberia with a 12^th century migration to China, and has been used in a wide variety of products. Starting with papers that could be found in the home (magazine pages, wrapping paper, and pictures) and Mod Podge glue, this is an inexpensive and easy craft that thrives on imagination.  Papers are placed single layer or multi layered on a porous surface (eg. wood, cardboard, canvas) to attractively decorate anything from a greeting card to a chest of drawers. With encouragement, curiosity and a flexible eye, these papers can produce unique patterns and color combinations that are hard to visualize in advance and so much more exciting to watch as it develops.

Knotting is a primitive technique and can be traced to 10,000 years ago.  Now we know the art of knotting as macramé and it also can be interpreted in the forms of knitting and crocheting.  There are opportunities to use basic knots to create simple projects that are exciting to develop.  For older adults with issues, a thicker element that is soft to the touch (eg. nylon) may be easier to work with than some fine hemp. One can also add beads and make a belt, bag or holder for a plant hanging.  In our everyday lives, we know that a men’s tie must be knotted to be worn and a hammock is a knotted fabrication for outdoor “seating”.  Artists have also used knotting in creative ways  for home items:  an artful chair designed by MarcelWanders is covered in epoxy resin for strength. Merrill Morrison works in a different way. She is an extraordinary fiber artist who works with small knots and says  "There is nothing like the tactile feel of the threads, as well as the rhythm of making knot after knot, until my shape takes form. I often incorporate beading to add luster and texture, which allows me a multitude of possibilities in surface embellishment."

And finally, wrapping is a wonderful way to combine elements and/or cover surfaces. If an element is wrapped in a linear way, it produces a effect called coiling and the coiling can be translated to an artful product to create anything from fashion accessories to sculpture. The late fiber artist Judith Scott was deaf, mute and had Downs Syndrome yet made amazing sculptures by wrapping diverse elements together. These sculptures are collectibles and now sell for many thousands of dollars. Another fiber artist, Sheila Hicks used coiling to create huge installations of art. She was the first fiber artist to take this very basic technique and elevate it in her art.

These basic craft techniques (and many others) require a short learning curve but the possibilities are endless.

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for. - Georgia O'Keeffe

CHALLENGING ART

Art sits in our universe isolated except for our presence to view it. Yet it is tethered to the creator of the piece who brought his/her passion, imagination and vision to reality.

Sometimes we know about the artist. S/he can be famous or someone totally unknown to us. Our thoughts reside with what we see and assume; an unconscious assumption is that the artist is able bodied. Yet there are many great artists who have met extraordinary challenges to bring their art to our lives. That journey, although not easy was triumphant; filled with an insatiable need to create, powered by the strength to overcome their afflictions and determined to capture all that was important to them. They have transformed their lives and consequently may transform our lives by example.

 Deaf, illiterate, with minimal language skills and probably autistic, James Castle created art. Being pragmatic, he used found materials such as bulk mail, cardboard cartons, and cigarette packages for surfaces, sharpened sticks and twigs for pens, stove soot mixed with his saliva for ink and flour with water to make paste. A self taught artist who lived a relatively isolated life; he beautifully mastered the concept of composition and perspective. His drawings, collages and constructions are now recognized worldwide.

 Georgia O’Keefe was a famous American painter who pursued her art even through her elderly years when her health was quite compromised. By the time she was 84 years old, Georgia had only peripheral vision but continued her painting and sculpting by directing an assistant for help. To alleviate the stress of painting and to keep her creative verve, she soon began exploring a new medium, clay, that would offer a tactile experience to compensate for her vision loss and was less visually demanding. Only weeks before her death at a frail 98 years old, she continued to create art.

 Stricken with polio and unable to use his arms, Erich Stegmann learned to use a mouth held brush to draw and paint. Realizing there must be other talented artists who were similarly compromised, he started the Association of Mouth Foot Painting Artists which now includes over 700 artists worldwide. They use either mouth held brushes or toe clenched brushes to create extraordinary art work marketed as greeting cards, calendars, prints and illustrated books. Their goal is to encourage artistic potential and secure financial independence through their art.

 Tim Lefens confesses to have been a self absorbed artist when a friend asked him to show his slides at a school for people who could not walk and/or talk. Then his life turned around. He felt compelled to creatively engage these people who were trapped inside bodies that were twisted and distorted; harnessed inflexibly for movement but quietly alive inside. His first approach was to enable their painting by using the wheelchair to make tracks on a floor canvas. After realizing its limitations, he developed a more controlled and dynamic process using headbands equipped with laser beams to select paint colors, brush sizes and location on wall canvas. His non profit Art Realization Technologies, (A.R.T.) “creates systems which enable the uncompromised creative self-expression of people with the most severe physical challenges”.

 Disabled and in constant pain after a trolley accident ripped through her pelvis and spine and left her with broken ribs and eleven fractures in her leg. Frida Kahlo channeled her energy in to art. She was in a body cast and in bed when she began painting self portraits "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best." Her paintings often used symbols and depicted her physical and psychological distress as well as her love of nature and Diego Rivera, her husband and mentor. In 1939 when the Louvre in Paris bought a Kahlo painting, it was its first acquisition of 20th century Mexican art.

 With Down’s syndrome, an inability to hear or speak and thought to be severely retarded, Judith Scott spent 35 years in an institution until her twin sister obtained her release. A self taught artist, she went to a facility every day that encouraged creativity for disabled adults. It was there that she created large non functioning fiber sculptures using discarded objects; wrapping them in bundles and sometimes using other objects. Although she did not understand art or the importance of her work, her sculptures are now shown in galleries and museums around the world.

“Artists with transforming illnesses are heroes of creativity and role models for us all. Working despite innumerable hardships, they shape the essence of our culture and create great beauty in our lives.”-Dr. Tobi Zausner

“If you treat an individual as he is, he will stay as he is, but if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”-Goethe