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Posts Tagged ‘Retirement’

Van Gogh and What Might Have Been

Posted in Biographical, Favorite Things, Influences, Motivation, Opinion, tagged , , , on January 7, 2020| 3 Comments »

Vincent Van Gogh- Memory of the Garden at Etten 1888

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My aim in life is to make pictures and drawings, as many and as well as I can; then, at the end of my life… looking back with love and tender regret, and thinking, ‘Oh, the pictures I might have made!’ But this does not exclude making what is possible…

–Vincent Van Gogh

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Love this painting from Vincent Van Gogh with its wonderful color and the abstraction of the forms that comes from eliminating the horizon line. It was a piece that came to mind when I ran across this passage from Van Gogh. The words reminded me of something else, a thought that has been on my mind in recent times.

I was asked at my Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery this past September if I ever had thoughts of retiring from my painting career. I think I made a bit of a joke about it, saying that I would no doubt die working away at a painting.

And that’s most likely true. I couldn’t imagine ever saying I am done as a painter.

It goes back to Van Gogh’s words above. I still see my artistic future brighter than my past, still envision important projects and better works to come. I still see my best work as being in the future, not dwelling in the distant past.

I can’t imagine that feeling ever changing. I can see myself on the day of my death, if I am capable of taking a moment to reflect on that day, will have that same regret that Van Gogh expressed: Oh, the pictures I might have made!

That being said, I must get to work. I am not retired yet and there are pictures to be made. The future is calling.

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End of the Road?

Posted in Biographical, Favorite Things, Motivation, Painting, tagged , , on March 31, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Deep Focus Reading about Carmen Herrera, the artist I featured here yesterday who was “found” at age 89 and is still actively painting at 100, brought some thoughts about the idea of retiring to mind.  While it’s not something that I dwell on, I am at that age when one begins to think about such things.  In the last year or so,  at different times I have been asked by a couple of friends who are not artists, one who is my age and is retired, if I was thinking about retiring.

The question kind of surprised me each time I was asked.  I mean, I know that it’s a possibility and I do the things that one should do when planning for retirement in a financial sense.  But being asked about it caught me off guard.

But giving it some thought made me realize that retirement was not the end point I was shooting for in my life.  In fact, I can’t imagine ever retiring from what I do.  How could I put aside that thing that has given me purpose, that thing that connects me to this world and gives me expression?  Why would I stop searching for answers to  questions I haven’t even asked yet?

The whole idea of retiring seems like a foreign concept to me and my life as it has come to be.

In fact, as I’ve gotten older, I find myself looking for more and more time in which I can continue my work.  Time has become a more and more precious commodity.  Any time spent ill or in pain is time taken from this work so I have began actively working harder at being fit and healthy.  I hate giving up time for working out or walking.  I would much rather be working but knowing that it is required for continuing my work longer into this life makes this a valuable investment.

Seeing Carmen Herrera at work at  100 years old, even  in her wheelchair, and the many other artists who worked into their 80’s and 90’s gives me hope for this idea of never retiring.  Looking around the studio, I realize that there is so much more work to be done.  Work that I feel I must do.  Each day seems to uncover more and more facets to be probed, more questions to answer.  There is just not enough time in this life and I am not going to give up until that sun on the horizon leaves and fails to rise the next morning.

So hopefully, if I am lucky enough, you’ll see me several decades down the line, still at work.  And happy for it…

 

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