Why Sixty Is Sexy

Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer reports on the session on Art and Aging, The Big Shift: The Velocity of Change in America's Aging Society, presented on Monday morning at the GIA conference in San Francisco:

“Age is a time to bloom, a time of great fertility, a time to celebrate their best work when they are ‘over the hill’,” said Marc Freedman, founder and CEO, Civic Ventures. “People think genius happens early in life but actually many artists were late bloomers such as Paul Cézanne.

Priorities are affected by the sense of mortality which people experience as a compression of time, a heightened sense of time left to live. Relationships deepen, spirituality attracts.” Freedman continues, “it is the trifecta of mortality, longevity and urgency.”

“The process of becoming something is more interesting,” said Tim Carpenter, founder and director, EngAGE. “Suzanne, a woman in her mid 60′s, single mom with 2 kids, was ‘old before her time’. She attended my writing class and wrote a 12 page screenplay about the challenges and needs of aging called Bandida. I remember thinking to myself ‘please don’t stink’. But it was good. And we made it into a film that was eventually shown by Ira Glass on This American Life.

Read the full post.