Now that I’m six months past 55, it has started to hit me that I’m no longer in my 20s with ages and ages before me. I’m not sure how this has happened. I think someone is stealing time while I sleep.
I was with friends recently and the subject came up, “What do you want to happen to your artwork when you are gone?” Will you be well known enough that a museum would be interested in your collection? How much of an endowment would need to accompany the collection? For those with children, there is the question of how much do you give them and do they even want it?
We tossed around ideas for a bit. My favorite was to set up one last show and auction off everything at the end with the proceeds donated to a favorite charity. I can think of a number of animal welfare organizations I would be happy to donate to. And wouldn’t that be appropriate, the animals helping each other?
With any luck on my part, it will be another 30 years or more before I do that one last show. Yet as I sit here writing this—on what would have been my mother’s 91st birthday—I am also reminded that life can be way too short. She was only 58 when she died.
Time to live life to the fullest.