I’ve had creative seasons marked by incredible commercial success.
Those were wild years, my mid to late thirties, often feeling like I was being swept along on some cosmic, life-defining ride, holding on for dear life. Product in stores nationwide. Signing events. Magazine articles. Books. All the things.
I’ve also weathered countless seasons of doubt and creative dry spells. Like so many creatives, there have been times I seriously considered trading art for something more stable, like a part-time job, just to relieve the pressure.
And in hindsight, I can see many moments of self-betrayal, too, along the creative path. Small decisions made from fear or uncertainty instead of truth. I still carry a quiet ache for those moments.
And my goodness, there have been seasons when the work arrived like light,
flowing like water from a sunlit current, lifting me, surprising me, offering something close to magic.
All of it matters.
In this season, I feel more connected to my journey as an artist, perhaps more than I ever have. Not as a career, but as a way of being.
I write.
I paint.
I wear clothes that align with my spirit (often easy to spot, I look like an artist).
I decorate my joy, filling my home with color, treasures, little altars of joy.
I honor the beautiful strangeness of how my mind works in the world.
I. Am. An. Artist.
Turns out, aging as an artist is such a gift. I can feel myself letting go of the chase for relevance and instead tuning into resonance.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about older artists. Not just painters or poets, but musicians who keep touring, keep creating, long after their biggest waves of exposure have passed. They continue because the work is part of how they move through the world. It’s how they stay connected to themselves.
I think of someone like Joni Mitchell, painting and playing only when it feels true. Or Leonard Cohen, still writing into his seventies, his voice weathered and worn, but full of clarity. His later songs feel like offerings, not declarations.
“Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.”
As I grow older, I find myself craving less visibility and more presence.
I no longer want to be everywhere. I want to be deeply somewhere.
In my work. In my life. In my own skin.
I want to make honest things. I want to listen more closely to what the work is asking of me, rather than what the world expects of it. I want to let my creativity be rooted in truth, not urgency.
This, to me, is the quiet joy of aging as an artist. It’s not about striving to be seen.
It’s about choosing to see. To go deeper, truer. To alchemize experience into meaning. To let the work become a kind of devotion.
Because my art isn’t a performance. And neither is yours.
It is a prayer.
A practice.
A way of staying awake.
Here’s to making art that helps us remember who we are.
