Dedication and Purpose:
65 Artists Over 65
Originally posted January 1, 2020
All art (c) the individual artists
Forget that business about 65 being the new 50. It’s not (some recalcitrant body part will surely confirm that), but neither is it the 65 of our parents, who were constrained by the expectations of age, gender, culture, and ethnicity. As Boomers we broadened those parameters, and as artists we revel in the range of possibilities. We have no intention of retiring. We may have left the day job, but our studio life is as active as it has always been, perhaps more so. The fire still burns, notes Len Bellinger, "for those of us who have been at this for 40+ years and can still stand in front of a canvas with the same enthusiasm and awe."
Jacket from the Silk Road, carved and painted wood with aluminum leaf, 120 x 108 x 18 inches
Drift, 2019, tar paper and hand-dyed paper, 214 x 144 inches x 1 inch; installation at Flinn Gallery, Greenwich, Connecticut
Structure from Light, 2019, video stills inkjet-printed on paper, 105 x 136 x 9 inches
Zig Zag Series, From Violet to Yellow Over Red, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24 inches
Only a Shadow Remained, 2019, monotype with graphite and wax on panel, 14 x 14 inches
Victor, 2019, oil on linen, 40 x 30 inches
Lift, 2019; ash and maple veneers on birch plywood, acrylic paint; 26 x 9 x 14 inches
Installation view of Silk Road paintings at ODETTA, New York City, 2019,
each encaustic on panel, 18 x 18 inches
Installation view of solo at Ryan James Fine Arts, Seattle; left: Pyramid Steppes, 25 x 59; right: Square Not a Square, 35 x 35 inches; both 2019, encaustic on panel
All of Us, 2017-19; limestone, granite, marble, sandstone; 94 x 3 x 42 inches
Commissioned by NJ Transit for Jersey Avenue Light Rail station, Jersey City
Poetry of the Square, 2017, metalpoint (silver, copper, gold) on black-gessoed panel, 24 x 24 x 2 inches
Connie Saddlemire
Prayer, 2019, assembled solarplate monoprint, 21 x 21 inches
Rock Stack Series II #4, 2019; acrylic, graphite, and wooden dowels on shaped canvas; 26.5 x 29 inches
ttm.marga, 2016-2019; oil, acrylic, staples, glue, and fabric on canvas mounted on wood; 81 x 63 inches
Dancing Girl with Big Crown, 2019; acrylic, oil, graphite on Arches; 21 x 10 inches
Pearl Tree (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow), 2019; mixed media wall sculpture with plant material, pearl necklaces, waxed cord, and encaustic; 47 x 42.5 x 9 inches
Installation view of New Land series, 2015-2017, gouache and mixed media on paper, each 8.5 x 12 inches. The series, which considers the challenges of dislocation and immigration, was shown at the Center for Contemporary Art in Bedminster, New Jersey, 2019. Some 288 pictures were gridded on six walls
Closeup of one work below: Something Strange Happened in the New Land
Adrift, solo exhibition at Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco, 2017
Time and Light and Sounds, 2019; oil, wax, charcoal, graphite on canvas, 77 x 141 inches
Rain in the City, after Hopper, 2019, photo-montage archival pigment print, 22 x 30 inches
Janis, inflatable sewn and painted nylon with internal LED lighting, 120 x 60 inches; here staged in front of the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, one of a series of unauthorized placements by the artist; 2019
Notes
You may be wondering how these artists were selected out of the (tens of) thousands of working artists over 65. I posted a call on Facebook, which means it was seen only by my friends on that social media platform. I limited the call in this way so as not to be inundated with submissions. I derive great satisfaction from maintaining a blog—and particularly by featuring my contemporaries who have worked so hard for so many years—but I needed to keep the submissions at a manageable number (about 150), well aware that I would be unable to include some very good work by some very good friends.
Once the deadline passed I began the difficult process of selection. Of course it was subjective—if you follow this blog, you know I’m partial to the color and geometry of abstraction—but I made every effort to be aesthetically inclusive. As I began to curate the selections I decided to go with the flow, which is to say allowing a painting, work on paper, sculpture, or photograph to assume its place in the queue based on its visual or conceptual relationship to the works before and after it. Crafting the flow is my favorite part of the process; it's also the most difficult, because it's the point at which work that had survived all the preliminary cuts may get eliminated. Apologies in advance to the many wonderful artists whose work you won't see here.
For those artists whose work is shown, click onto their names for a link to their websites.