Spotlighting Artists Who Bloom Later in Life with Janice Mason Steeves (#181)

Host: Alyson Stanfield, Art Biz Success My guest is Janice Mason Steeves, author of Bloom: On Becoming An Artist Later in Life. Which, as I say in our interview, is “a lovely mix of insights from a questionnaire, gentle guidance from someone who teaches and leads artist workshops all over the world, and wisdom from academics, professionals, and spiritual advisors.” Janice has been in my orbit for a long time and I have been dying to talk with her about this book, the seeds of which she mentioned to me about 4 years ago. It’s a book that needed to be written and proves that we have a lot more to talk about this topic. But let’s kick off the conversation. Janice will share her background and the realization that the students in her workshops tended to be in the 60 to 80 age groups. This piqued her curiosity about taking up art later in life. We spend the first half of our conversation talking about how the book came to be. Then we discuss the advantages, benefits and challenges of becoming an artist after age 60. I, of course, want to know about how artists over 60 approach the business of art, but that’s not Janice’s concern. (And I have some experience that perhaps will lead to a different episode.)