The Vintage Years: Finding Your Inner Artist (Writer, Musician, Visual Artist) After Sixty

If you ever wonder what it would feel like to play a musical instrument, write a play, or paint a landscape but thought you were too old, think again. The Vintage Years, described by psychologist/author Francine Toder, Ph.D. as the life-stage beginning around age sixty, when the external demands in life often slow enough to make more time and space for new learning and personal exploration not possible before. It s then that we search for something fresh, a new direction or challenge. Toder explains why it is the perfect time-frame to express yourself through the visual arts, writing, or music. The brain also benefits from these challenges, defying the changes that can occur with the passage of time. What s more, natural changes in the brain and hormonal functioning as we age actually seem to facilitate learning the fine arts. Toder delves into the latest brain science discoveries in everyday terms while opening a window into the lives of more than twenty late-blooming artists, who took up the violin, or watercolor painting, or memoir writing for the first time after they turned sixty. Some were led by curiosity, others by realizing a previously unmet dream. Regardless of whether or not you are working, and irrespective of your financial, geographical, or other life circumstances, read how to increase your pleasure and satisfy your search for a new adventure.