What makes an artist great, how does an artist become great? In today's episode of I've been thinking about, I explore the idea of maturity, ageing and process.

It seems to me that maturity, ageing in the Arts is actually beneficial. Unlike other professions where ageing is synonymous with decline, with cognitive or physical impairment - people in sports have an early retirement age for that reason, Or former US president Biden wasn’t he forced to step down because of his cognitive decline due to his age? That doesn’t seem to apply to artists. When it comes to the Arts, age and maturity actually have the opposite effect - we can keep getting better. 

And there are many examples of this: Irish writer Edna O’Brien lived to 93. French writer Annie Ernaux now 84, won the Nobel prize for literature at the age of 82. Classical pianists only seem to get better with age, they have all the technique of years of practice without the need for showmanship that you sometimes see in younger pianists. I think about artists like Sonia Boyce who represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in her 60s or figurative painter Claudette Johnson also in her 60s. What about American abstract painter Stanley Whitney still making beautiful work at 79 or Indian artist, Arpita Singh. Now 87, I recently went to her solo exhibition at London’s Serpentine and her work took my breath away, her use of colour and composition, I felt like I was seeing an entirely new interpretation of artistic expression.

I mean as long as you can pick up a paintbrush or pencil, or a camera, the work doesn’t and shouldn’t stop. And I’m not saying that we have to wait until we’re in our 80s to produce works that’s meaningful. I’m saying that our process produces the sound and the deeper the process the richer the sound. 

Music Refs:

Ray LaMontagne, Jolene

Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now from 1969

Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now from 2000 

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