The Home of Steven Barnes
Author, Teacher, Screenwriter


Monday, June 04, 2012

Art and Aging


On Art and Aging

" . . . my seventieth year, nothing I drew was of particular note.
At the age of seventy-three I could somewhat understand the structure of animals,On On
insects and fish, and the vital nature of plants and trees. Thus, at eighty my art will have 
greatly improved, at ninety will have attained real depth, and at one hundred will be divinely
inspired. At one hundred and ten my every dot and every stroke will come to life . . ."


Katsushika Hokusai
##
Now that's the way to plan graceful aging! Remember the core success strategy:
Clear Goals (times) Faith (times) Constant Action (times) an Attitude of Gratitude (equals) positive result. Hokusai seems to have it all covered. What is your weak link?
##
Jason makes his movie debut! Well...not quite. Tananarive shot a trailer for our new zombie novel "Devil's Wake", due next month, utilizing Jason as the young man caught in a dreadful situation...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g__1EeyNhFY
##

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Doesn't that sort of fall back into the improper modesty of "if freakin' Hokusai thought HIS art was bad before age 70, what hope do the rest of us have?" Or was that a cultural thing because the elderly had more respect in his Japan?

Benoquin said...

nice blog post

Thanks

Acyclovir cream
Kamagra
oral jelly

Generic
Latisse

Benoquin

Steven Barnes said...

Anonymous--it depends. You can also catch the humor in it. He is simply constantly looking ahead with his ego, keeping it in check. Meanwhile, the real "artist" part of him works on, day after day, taking great satisfaction in the work itself. Seems massively healthy to me.

David: if you have a question for me, you can email me at steven@diamondhour.com

Anonymous said...

"You can also catch the humor in it."

Like the humor in this:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/267027/102-year-old-immigrant-docks-in-NZ-video

"...It's a wonderful new adventure and I would say to anyone that if you want to do something you should do it straight away while you can. What's important is that when I'm 105 I don't want to be thinking 'I wish I had moved to the other side of the world when I was 102'..."