I come bearing good news today – creativity does not decline with age. I think that I mentioned that I am taking a psychology class on creativity. This week, we’ve been looking at research on creativity across the lifespan. Since 1835, the assumption was that creativity rose from childhood through one’s 20s, peaked in one’s late 30s or early 40s and then declined. That’s ageist, but also wrong. Your creative life doesn’t end at 50. Thank goodness!
It turns out, it’s more nuanced than a simple age-related bell curve. What matters is when you start producing a lot and when you make your most significant work. You need to practice and experiment first and get some not-so-significant work under your belt before you start making your most creative work. Then, the data appear to show that your best work comes a decade after your first major work, whether that happened in your 30s, 40s, or 70s (as in the case of Grandma Moses). I am taking this to mean that I am about due for my best work since I’d consider my first major work to be my Victims Quilt Project, which I began in 2016. What about you? Maybe your first major work hasn’t come yet and you have decades of creativity ahead of you!
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