What happens when you sign up for something you might turn out to be bad at? In this episode of Your Creative Midlife, I'm exploring embroidery on Nantucket, in its different forms. It's the part of this island the influencers aren't telling you about.

What I didn't expect was how much this experience would end up being about limits. I learned that I am not good at everything (and how to be ok with that).

In This Episode You'll Learn

  → On being a beginner in midlife  

  → The history of The Nantucket School of Needlery

  → The legacy of Erica Wilson, the Julia Child of needlework 

  → The surprising health benefits of participating in the arts

  → Richard Saja's avant-garde needlework 

If you’re interested in learning about needlework and how to manage a creative project when you meet your limit, this episode is for you.

Chapters

00:00 – Introduction and needlekeep 

02:38 – RIchard Saja and avant-garde toile 

04:47 – Erica Wilson, the Julia Child of Needlework 

06:00 – The Nantucket School of Needlery 

08:00 – Sip and Stitch at Erica Wilson 

09:20 – The story of Nantucket’s Airport code, why it is ACK

10:30 – Resources from the 1800 House 

 Learn More About Needlework 

  • Listen to The GAM episode on needlework https://thenantucketgam.podbean.com/e/11/  

 • Visit Erica Wilson’s store for a class on Nantucket https://ericawilson.com/pages/60years  

- Connect with Richard Saja

   •  https://www.instagram.com/richardsaja/ 

About Your Creative Midlife

Your Creative Midlife is a podcast and YouTube channel hosted by Betsy Bush, featuring inspiring conversations with artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, and makers who discovered new creative paths after 50. Whether you're retired, an empty nester, or simply ready to explore a new passion, you'll find practical advice, encouragement, and real stories that prove it's never too late to create.

🌐 Website: https://www.yourcreativemidlife.com

📩 Share Your Creative Story: https://www.yourcreativemidlife.com/contact

Please rate and review on Apple Podcasts.  And see more about Betsy Bush and her guests at www.yourcreativemidlife.com.  Are you on your own artistic or creative journey?  We want to know about you!  Please contact us through the website.  Dare to follow your muse!

I’m sharing the results of a collage workshop I took at the Visual Arts Center of the Artists Association of Nantucket, one of the island's major art centers. As a budding collage artist, this was an amazing experience, and it really gave me a chance to do a deep dive for four days in a row with a great instructor and great classmates. 

I talk about the different techniques I used in each collage and how I’m discovering the value of process over getting a finished product.

Here are my takeaways:

1. It really is about process over product. If you focus on having something "worthy" to bring home to show people, the experience is less fun.

2. Use materials that you already have (my favorite stop is the Nantucket Dump -- more on this later)

3. Collage is really problem solving; not everything on the canvas has to be paper (you can also use paint).

4. Making art every day is exhausting; so much respect for the professionals.

I hope you've had a summer that's been productive, relaxing, and maybe you've tried something different, maybe you've taken up something new, some ex exploration or some play, because that's what we need to be doing to stay healthy and happy as we continue our creative midlives.

Links: 

Learn more about the Artists Association of Nantucket: https://www.nantucketarts.org/ 

Please rate and review on Apple Podcasts.  And see more about Betsy Bush and her guests at www.yourcreativemidlife.com.  Are you on your own artistic or creative journey?  We want to know about you!  Please contact us through the website.  Dare to follow your muse!

How would you like to try something completely new? That's what I'm doing with my summer, calling it Nantucket Camp. How about paper marbling? It's a heritage craft, which means, in some ways, it's considered endangered. 

Here’s how I learned to make marbled paper, just like Renaissance Florence or Venice! I took the workshop run by The Nantucket Historical Association. They have a heritage crafts department where you can learn many different things. We made our papers and then used the paper to cover a clamshell box, inside and out. It was so much fun. I can’t wait to try paper marbling again! 

Links: 

The Nantucket Historical Association Heritage Crafts: https://nha.org/learn/heritage-craft/ 

The Nantucket Historical Association Gam Podcast: https://nha.org/the-nantucket-gam-podcast/ 

Please rate and review on Apple Podcasts.  And see more about Betsy Bush and her guests at www.yourcreativemidlife.com.  Are you on your own artistic or creative journey?  We want to know about you!  Please contact us through the website.  Dare to follow your muse!

This summer I'm treating Nantucket Island like summer camp, exploring new activities like pottery, collage, paper marbling, and so much more. You can try so many artistic pursuits on this island. So if you see something new that you want to try, join me for Camp Nantucket.

The first episode drops Thursday, July 23rd!

Please rate and review on Apple Podcasts.  And see more about Betsy Bush and her guests at www.yourcreativemidlife.com.  Are you on your own artistic or creative journey?  We want to know about you!  Please contact us through the website.  Dare to follow your muse!

Do you wish you had taken (or stuck with) music lessons as a kid? Or maybe you didn’t have the opportunity for lessons and now wonder if it is too late. In this episode, I talk with Elle Littlefield, an entrepreneur and classical music lover. Elle Littlefield grew up playing violin through the Suzuki method. But like so many of us, she put music aside for other things. Now she is returning to the instrument as an adult, playing alongside her kids. Elle and I sit down to talk about her relearning classical music as an adult, music and brain health, and so much more. 

About the guest:

Elle Littlefield is the founder of CareerWell, a company that teaches job seekers how to master their job search to promote career growth and reduce career stress. She holds a Bachelor of Arts cum laude from Columbia University. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the Columbia Alumni Association, the university-wide association across all 18 schools, where she also chairs the Mentorship and Networking Committee. Elle is a lifelong lover of violin, which she has returned to playing in adulthood. 

Music in this episode: La Campanella by Paganini.

Links:

International Suzuki Association: https://internationalsuzuki.org/method 

Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Saves Lives by Daisy Fancourt: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250364531/artcure/

Interview with John-Morgan Bush, Dean of Juilliard Extension School: https://youtu.be/m-6R15awqJM?si=lrpF_E3wzqyOf15X 

Columbia School of General Studies: https://www.gs.columbia.edu/ 

Learn more about Elle Littlefield https://mycareerwell.com/about 

Please rate and review on Apple Podcasts.  And see more about Betsy Bush and her guests at www.yourcreativemidlife.com.  Are you on your own artistic or creative journey?  We want to know about you!  Please contact us through the website.  Dare to follow your muse!

There are many reasons to write a memoir.  You may find it cathartic to “get it all out there” or maybe you have a life story that you think readers will find entertaining.  Either way, says memoirist and writing workshop leader Sarah Saffian, there is a difference between therapeutic writing for its own sake and writing for publication. Working through these distinctions in a workshop setting with an experienced teacher can help you get your memoir writing to the place you want it to be.

Covered in the podcast:

• How Sarah Saffian helps students craft a compelling story that will engage an audience.
• Approaching your life story with necessary emotional distance and perspective
• Receiving and giving feedback in a workshop setting is a valuable learning experience that helps writers improve their own craft.
• Why it's important In a workshop to "critique the work and not the life” to keep the focus on the craft of writing
• Why Sarah encourages students to read extensively in the memoir genre to deepen their understanding of the craft.
• Sarah's strategies for managing concerns about family members, should your memoir be published.

Sarah Saffian is a licensed clinical social worker, therapist, and author. Her memoir, "Ithaka: A Daughter's Memoir of Being Found," about her experience as an adoptee reconnecting with her birth family, has been called a classic of the adoption genre. She teaches memoir and profile writing at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and uses a "Therapeutic Writing" approach that combines her expertise in psychology and creative writing.

Links:

saffian.com 

https://www.sarahlawrence.edu/writing-institute/courses/ 

https://www.writerscenter.org/ 

Please rate and review on Apple Podcasts.  And see more about Betsy Bush and her guests at www.yourcreativemidlife.com.  Are you on your own artistic or creative journey?  We want to know about you!  Please contact us through the website.  Dare to follow your muse!

In this episode, I reflect on my trip to The Art Students League and how it influenced my friend and podcast guest John Kneapler’s journey as an artist. 

The Art Students League has been making art education and studio space accessible in New York City. This kind of community is important for making art and also for improving our health. In her book Art Cure, Daisy Fancourt says social prescribing as the practice of referring patients to “community-based activities that can support their health, with arts being one of the most popular.” 

John Kneapler is an artist who grew up in Miami, Florida, with an early talent for art. Discouraged by his parents from pursuing fine art as a career, he studied at Pratt Institute and founded John Kneaper Design, a prominent graphic design and branding company in New York. His firm worked with high-profile clients such as MoMA and Citerella. Following significant life events, including the loss of his parents and the closure of his business during the pandemic, he retired from graphic design to pursue his lifelong passion for painting.   He serves on the board of the Art Students League in New York City.

Links:

Full interview with John Kneapler: https://youtu.be/V2OwR--129U?si=SBj224Ac3aV9jeQM 

The Art Students League: https://www.artstudentsleague.org/why 

John Kneapler’s website: https://johnkneaplerpaintings.com/ 

Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Saves Lives by Daisy Fancourt: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250364531/artcure/

Webinar on social prescribing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocnv9rzJeYY 

Please rate and review on Apple Podcasts.  And see more about Betsy Bush and her guests at www.yourcreativemidlife.com.  Are you on your own artistic or creative journey?  We want to know about you!  Please contact us through the website.  Dare to follow your muse!

I’ve explored collage a lot this past year. In fact, my collage roommate has become an exceptional collage artist after retiring from her career in corporate communications. Her creative pivot has been a huge inspiration. This episode is a compilation of my interview with Lela and my own journey into the world of collage. 

Links:

Watch the full interview with Lela: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2vc2HvS2zo&t=793s 

Collage Lab: https://explore.collage-lab.com/join2026 

Kolaj Magazine: https://kolajmagazine.com/content/ 

How to Make a Collage: https://www.yourcreativemidlife.com/resources-for-creativity-midlife/how-to-make-collage

Please rate and review on Apple Podcasts.  And see more about Betsy Bush and her guests at www.yourcreativemidlife.com.  Are you on your own artistic or creative journey?  We want to know about you!  Please contact us through the website.  Dare to follow your muse!

I met Dr. Daisy Fancourt in May, when she was a featured speaker at a longevity conference. If you’ve heard of her, it’s because her latest book Art Cure, has taken over the art world on social media. 

In this special solo episode, I share my thoughts on this revelatory book, the questions it asks, and what I think needs to happen next. 

Resources:

Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives: https://bookshop.org/p/books/art-cure-the-science-of-how-the-arts-save-lives-daisy-fancour

Learn more about Dr. Daisy Fancourt: https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/44526-daisy-fancourt 

Please rate and review on Apple Podcasts.  And see more about Betsy Bush and her guests at www.yourcreativemidlife.com.  Are you on your own artistic or creative journey?  We want to know about you!  Please contact us through the website.  Dare to follow your muse!

You can have a whole new identity if you want. You can pick up something new or pursue that creative impulse that has been in the back of your mind. 

This week on Your Creative Midlife, I am in the hot seat! I sat down with my friend and fellow podcaster, Flora White, who is the CEO of Evolution Content. 

We talk about the inspiration behind Your Creative Midlife, what it was like to go back to school in my mid-fifties, and why creativity is essential for long-term wellbeing. 

Links:

Columbia School of General Studies: https://www.gs.columbia.edu/ 

Older Adult Auditing Program, Purchase College: https://www.purchase.edu/offices/registrar/older-adult-auditing-program/

Juilliard Extension School: https://www.juilliard.edu/stage-beyond/juilliard-extension 

Art Cure: The Science Behind Why Art Saves Lives by Daisy Fancourt: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250364531/artcure/

About Evolution Content: https://www.evolutioncontent.co/

Please rate and review on Apple Podcasts.  And see more about Betsy Bush and her guests at www.yourcreativemidlife.com.  Are you on your own artistic or creative journey?  We want to know about you!  Please contact us through the website.  Dare to follow your muse!