Late-life Creativity Research Articles

Creativity and Healthy Ageing: Future Research Directions

AbstractThe fact that the world population is ageing brings about societal challenges, but at the same time creates new opportunities for more creative and meaningful lives at older age. In this article, we investigate existing gaps in several fields of research that aim to better understand the role of creativity in later life and its effects on healthy ageing. We present an overview of the diverse definitions of creativity and culture, review current approaches to wellbeing, and summarise findings from research on the effects of creative activities on wellbeing and healthy ageing. In addition, we discuss recent research on the impact of environmental contexts and relations on creative wellbeing. Through identifying the definitions and scope of research on creativity and wellbeing in the lives of older adults, we aim to provide promising future research directions. Our review shows that current research on the impact of artistic and creative activities on wellbeing in later life generally does not consider older adults’ own subjective and relational experiences, and too often ignores elements of the complex environmental conditions in healthy ageing. Therefore, we conclude that there is a sustained need for holistic and relational approaches that address the entanglement of social and natural environments with healthy ageing and creative wellbeing.

Theoretical Models of Collaborative Partnerships in Arts-Health Care Practices for Older Adults.

Although research investigating collaborative partnerships with older adults has been slow to develop, promoting user involvement and co-production is gaining interest in aging studies, with the aim of improving interactions between the different stakeholders involved, and toward the more effective delivery of care provisions and better community life for aging people. This is based on existing evidence that improved dynamics within collaborative and mutual learning processes can enhance the integration of new practices at different levels by generating novel creative approaches and practice frameworks for the delivery of quality care for older adults. This article presents the findings from a series of narrative interviews conducted with different stakeholders involved in arts-health practices in Finland and South Korea. Focusing on empirical perspectives of these stakeholders on arts-health practices-from planning to assessment-this study identifies vital components of co-producing and co-delivering arts-health practices for older adults and highlights the importance of utilizing their late-life creativity as active partners in such practices across cultural contexts. In addition to identifying three central stages of developing arts-health practices, two theocratical models are proposed to provide structural support for collaborative partnerships in arts-health practices, with the aim of promoting holistic care provisions for aging people through such practices.

Examining arts and creativity in later life and its impact on older people's health and wellbeing: a systematic review of the evidence.

There is a growing recognition of the contribution that participation in group-based arts and creativity interventions makes to our health and wellbeing. Despite this acknowledgement, more empirical investigation is required to more fully understand its impact. The aim of this mixed-method systematic review was to develop a better understanding of the evidence on the impact of arts and creativity on older people's physical and psychological health and wellbeing. Extensive searches of 14 electronic bibliographic databases were carried out using predefined search criteria for the period 2013-2020. Ninety-three studies were included within the review and appraised using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT). Dance was the most common form of arts identified within studies, followed by music and singing. Dance was associated with improved balance, lower body physical strength, flexibility, and aerobic fitness in older adults. Promising evidence showed that music and singing on a regular basis were associated with improved cognitive function, quality of life, affective states and a sense of wellbeing in older adults. Preliminary evidence showed that visual and creative arts were associated with reduced feelings of loneliness, improved sense of community and social connectedness. Initial evidence showed that theatre and drama were associated with emotional wellbeing; however, more evidence is required in this area. The evidence shows that participation in group-based arts and creativity can have positive physical, mental, and social health impacts for older adults, ageing and for population health. These findings support the importance of participation in the arts for older adults, especially for the promotion of positive health and for the prevention, or mitigation, of ill health in later life for both public health and the arts and creativity agenda.

ON THE THRESHOLD: CREATIVITY IN MID-LIFE

Abstract While late-life creativity has attracted significant scholarly inquiry, it is not clear that the same focus has applied to creativity in midlife and its relationship to creativity across the lifespan. Allied to a proposed symphonic concert by the Indianapolis Symphony of works from late midlife creativity with gerontologically-themed pre-concert talks occurring alongside GSA 2022, an activity curated by the Humanities, Arts and Cultural Gerontology Advisory Panel of GSA, this symposium will provide insights into a relatively under-explored aspect of creativity and aging, that of midlife creativity and its relationship to creativity at other stages of life. For many artists the most significant breakthroughs in style and critical reception are found in the works of midlife, and the symposium will explore the phenomenology and underlying themes of midlife creativity. This will include a review of the literature, a focus on midlife breakthrough and development in the creativity of Brahms and Janacek, interaction with the program of the parallel symphony concert, and a focus on arts and crafts creativity in people newly undertaking arts and crafts in mid-life. This will be complemented by a review of creativity and well-being from the age of 50 onwards.

Bohdana Filts’s vocal chamber works of the late-life period: artistic design and performance implementation

The article considers the features of artistic and imaginative thinking of Bohdana Filts (1932-2021) in the vocal chamber work of late-life creativity. The author highlights the performing features of the solos chosen for analysis based on poetic texts by L. Ukrainka, I. Franko, L. Kostenko, and H. Kanych. An attentive and careful attitude to the requirements of performing practice, skilful use of all the possibilities of the voice, and its timbre-expressive palette are prominent in Filts’s solos. The composer masterfully creates the piano accompaniment’s part, which always plays an essential figurative and semantic role. In the analyzed works of the late-life period, there is a direct connection with the vocal chamber compositions of earlier stages of the artist’s work through the ideological and aesthetic orientation of the idea, features of intonation thinking of the composer, her harmonic language, and unique style of vocal writing with characteristic genre preferences.

The Oppens: Disability, Disease, and the Authorship of Late Work

Every artist has their last works, but not all are “late works,” as theorized by Edward Said. By revisiting George Oppen’s late poems, I challenge established preconceptions about late-life creativity that have typically emphasized social withdrawal, despair, and finality in his work. Emphasis placed on lateness, I argue, obscures material conditions of textual production, particularly coauthoring literary activities. The Oppens work together to shape a social poetics and model of authoring beyond the normative ideals of self-reliance, especially with Primitive, published when Alzheimer’s disease had all but prevented George from working. The poems and archival evidence of Mary Oppen's editorial work describe the couple's journey through illness and the work's posthumous reinvention as a stylistic artefact.

The Elderhood Mystique

While elderhood recognizes untapped potential and continued growth and creativity in later life, it also risks becoming a dismissive label that positions older people as different, otherworldly, and mysterious. By analyzing the concept of elderhood and similar movements (e.g., sageing, croning, eldering) in popular and academic literature, paying close attention to how elderhood is defined and framed, I found that elderhood has a role in some religious and cultural practices. However, newer approaches to elderhood have emerged from middle aged writers who imagine an idealized role in later life – the elderhood mystique. Often grounded in introspective passivity and selflessness, elderhood parallels Kathleen Woodward’s depiction of wisdom as a disempowering label that discourages activism and resistance by older people. Subsequently, elderhood and wisdom risk becoming new forms of othering or exclusion. Overall, findings underscore the importance of critical analysis of age-related terms, regardless of how positive they seem.

Subjective experiences of participatory arts engagement of healthy older people and explorations of creative ageing

ObjectivesThe aim of this article was to report findings from a qualitative focus group study conducted to understand the subjective experiences of community-dwelling healthy older people engaging in a range of participatory arts activities. The article also uses the participants' voices to consider nuances and interconnections of themes to unpack the complexities of ‘participatory arts’ engagement and support a conceptualisation of ‘creative ageing’. Study designThis study involved qualitative focus group interviews. MethodsFocus group interviews were conducted with five groups of healthy older people (aged ≥50 years) living in the community (i.e. not in residential care settings). Participants were recruited through self-selected sampling, and on the basis of self-reporting, no diagnosis of ill-health. Focus group interviews were digitally recorded and analysed using thematic analysis. Themes developed from a systematic review of participatory arts for promoting well-being in later life conducted previously by the author were used as the stimulus for conversation in the focus groups. Interviews were not transcribed, rather pseudonymised quotations are used to support the themes. The study also explored barriers to participation, although these findings are not reported here. ResultsSubjective experiences of participatory arts engagement of healthy older people focused on everyday creativity and reflections on the term ‘participation’, which challenge the traditional focus of arts and health research on the effects of active engagement. Healthy older people experienced a sense of achievement and ‘flow’ through creative engagement, which led to opportunities for social interaction and developing a sense of purpose. Through transitions of ageing, older people found creative ways of rediscovering their identity in later life, which supported resilience and highlighted a connection between body, mind and soul. ConclusionsFindings suggest that participation in everyday creative experiences can lead to a sense of achievement and purpose, which provides support and structure in the construction of changing identity in later life. Participatory arts engagement is particularly instrumental during transitions of ageing. This study provides a conceptualisation of ‘creative ageing’ which challenges traditional ideas of ‘participatory arts’ and audience engagement by focusing on subjectivities of the participant voice. The framework moves debate beyond a focus on the efficacy of arts engagement to consider the relevance of subjective experiences of everyday creativity in later life.

What's it worth? Value and valuation of late-life creativity

AbstractNew interest in late-life creativity has arisen in gerontology. To date, such research has mainly focused on the positive impact creativity has on older adults, but has scarcely contextualised older adults’ creative engagement. Drawing on the sociology of valuation, this article aims to contextualise late-life creativity by critically exploring how creativity gains, stabilises and loses its value and how these processes are related to perceptions, images and discourses addressing old age. Data from 13 interviews with older (60+) adults involved in creative practices in Austria are used to explore these topics. Interviews examined perceptions of creative production, everyday routines and personal attitudes towards ageing. Interviews transcripts were analysed using the documentary method. The analysis revealed three registers of valuation in late-life creativity: economic value, in which valuable creativity was given away at a high revenue; field value, where valuable creativity was appreciated by institutions or other artists in the field; and lifecourse value, in which doing a creative activity for a long time meant being able to produce a creative product that was high in value. This article emphasises late-life creativity as a process of value production that is structured by the making and evaluating of creative products and adds to the current critique that the narrow view of late-life creativity in its associations with wellbeing present a reductionist picture of the capacities that the arts and creativity have for older adults. The results demonstrate the potential for valuation studies in gerontology as they highlight the circumstances and practices by which the activities of older adults are (de)valued. For policy and practice, this article suggests imagining arts-based interventions for older adults beyond the realm of health and wellbeing, and encourages thinking about how valuable artistic experiences can be supported in later life.

Book Review: Creativity in Later Life: Beyond Late Style

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MUSEUMS AS A NETWORK REPOSITORY OF LATE-LIFE CREATIVITY

Through collaboration and exchange for exhibitions, art museums represent an under-explored network for displaying late-life creativity and the longevity dividend. Drawing on the collection from many galleries brought together for the Letzte Bilder (Last Pictures) exhibition by the Schirm Gallery Frankfurt, this talk will illustrate the possibility of creating educational programs, Late Life Creativity trails both virtual through podcasts and structural, as well as specific exhibitions of late-life creativity as a catalyst for reimagining and reframing ageing. Further approaches are the focus on the life course of works of artist like Cy Twombly at the Museum Brandhorst Munich or Pablo Picasso at the Museum Barberini Potsdam, as well as studying aging in artists self-portraits. The interaction of creativity with age, diseases, and functional decline in the museum context can promote the changing of role models and our understanding of productivity and creativity by ourselves as well as in the society.

THE SOCIOCULTURAL MODEL OF CREATIVITY: HOW IT CAN EXPLAIN THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MULTIPLE FORMS OF LATE-LIFE CREATIVITY

Creativity in later life comes in many forms, ranging from everyday creativity to genius-level creativity, and including both newly learned creative activities and life-long creative hobbies. Previous psychosocial models of creativity have had limited utility in explaining the significance of late life creativity. Glaveanu’s sociocultural model has not been previously applied to older adults, but its inclusiveness makes it supremely useful for describing the range of creative activities and products in context. Creativity, according to Glaveanu, involves five interconnected components: actors, actions, artifacts, audiences, and affordances, which can be used to describe many different points along continuum of creative activities. The sociocultural model recognizes the value of different levels of creativity, including culturally-specific crafts, practice and learning new skills, the role of large and small audiences for creativity, and the connection of creativity and community. Glaveanu’s model will be discussed in the context of Erikson’s theory of late life development.

PRESIDENTIAL SYMPOSIUM: MUSEUMS AND AGING: NOVEL NETWORK OPPORTUNITIES TO SUPPORT OPTIMAL AGING

Museums represent an evolving and under-recognized network of opportunity for examining aging while supporting optimal aging across the lifespan. Museums bind communities together in a civic body by “…identifying its highest values, its proudest memories, and its truest truths.”(Duncan, 1991). They represent a secular ritual of the modern state in which the spiritual heritage of the nation is offered as a public reinforcement of political values. Art museums are also sites which enable individuals to achieve liminal experience - to move beyond the psychic constraints of mundane existence, step out of time, and attain new, larger perspectives. The interaction and potential synergies between museums and aging have been insufficiently explored in gerontological scholarship, with the existing emphasis largely focussing on facilitating access to older people and those with age-related health conditions. This symposium reflects and magnifies the networking of GSA with a major art museum through an Educational Site Visit during GSA 2019 to the Blanton Art Museum. It proposes to review museums and ageing in a broader context, exploring the context within which aging is represented in the discourse of heritage and museums, museums networking to provide a repository of late-life creativity, networks of older people as a key resource and client group for museums, life-course and inter-generational engagement with museums. Finally, the insights that the ageing of art works provide for curating the longevity dividend through developing scholarly networks between gerontologists and curators.

The Meaning of a Visual Arts Program for Older Adults in Complex Residential Care.

ABSTRACTThis qualitative study explores the experiences of older adults participating in a creative visual arts program at a residential care facility in Victoria, British Columbia. A narrative inquiry approach was used to conduct face-to-face interviews with 10 residents and three program staff in addition to the systematic observations of program activities and an arts exhibit. The findings reveal the program fostered a sense of community among participants and enhanced their sense of self-worth as artists. A public art exhibition at a community centre underlined the value of residents' artwork and gave meaning and purpose to their involvement in the program. Findings show the importance of arts programs in fostering creativity in later life and illustrate how people living in institutions can experience multiple dimensions of the self through artistic forms of expression. This study highlights the need to increase access to arts programs for individuals living in residential care.

The emergence of the creative ager – On subject cultures of late-life creativity

ObjectivesIn the last fifteen years, research on aging has seen a new interest in creativity in later life. While late-life creativity has often been described as a method to unpack the potential of older adults in the face of demographic change, this newfound interest is arguably linked to the commodification of late-life creativity itself in terms of innovation and productivity. These new modes of creativity might then also establish new ways to age. Has the homo aestheticus spread into old age? MethodTo explore this question, this paper first lays out a praxeology of late-life creativity. In this framework, creativity as well as age is understood as a social practice through which the artwork as well as the (older) artist is continuously produced. Second, this paper draws upon data from thirteen semi-structured interviews with older adults regularly involved in creative practices in their everyday lives. Using the documentary method, data shows how older adults describe the creative practice and what meanings they attach to growing older within these practices. Results and discussionAnalyzing subject cultures that emerge from creativity in later life shows how creative practice calls for a specific self-image that is centered around productivity, the preservation of field positions despite growing older and active as well as anti-aging. Studying late-life creativity through a praxeological lens allows for critically evaluating current modes of creativity and the normative positions that are inherent in these practices.

‘The roses are long gone but the chrysanthemums are magnificent’: Late-life Creativity in Quartet and Youth

This article employs Boden's (2004) understanding that creativity can be defined in terms of both ‘big C creativity’ associated with high culture and ‘small c creativity’ concerned with constructive, life-affirming strategies in its comparative study of the films Quartet (2012) and Youth (2015) focusing on their representations of ageing artists and musicians and the ways in which each film suggests that life experience informs artistic endeavour and vice versa. With each film based on varying scenarios of late-life ‘big C creativity’, the article explores the contrasts with ‘small c creativity’ that are suggested in storylines. The article argues that to varying degrees and with different ideological implications each film points to the importance of relationality and embodiment in late-life creativity.

‘Writing to make ageing new’: Dutch poets' understandings of late-life creativity

ABSTRACTThis article presents the results of a study that examines how older professional writers experience and understand creativity in later life. In psychological, humanities' and gerontological approaches to ageing and creativity, this question is still under-explored. The study's data-set consists of transcriptions of lengthy interviews conducted in spring 2015 with five Dutch poets over 65 who have achieved some eminence in the field. By means of interpretative phenomenological analysis, three superordinate and 12 subordinate themes came to the fore that offer an account of the ideas, thoughts and feelings characteristic of the way these writers perceive the later stages in their career. The first superordinate theme, Securing Sustainable Writing Practices, comprises the subordinate themes of maintaining continuity in writing approach; drawing on wealth of experience; emancipating from earlier literary conceptions; and reinventing oneself as artist throughout the years. The second superordinate theme, Negotiating the Literary Field, encompasses the following subordinate themes: challenges regarding finding or keeping a publisher in later life; developing self-acceptance and relativising literary awards; handling continuity of reception, or the way literary work is pigeonholed by critics; and staying visible in the literary scene. The third and final superordinate theme, Writing as Art of Living, refers to: not feeling old(er); writing as a practice of good living; writing as a way to recreate what is lost or unknown; and confronting cognitive decline. Together, these superordinate and subordinate themes diversify ideas of late-life creativity that are based on questionable generalising conceptualisations of the psychology of later life and artistic careers.

A Swan Song for the Swan-Song Phenomenon: Multi-Level Evidence against Robust End-of-Life Effects for Classical Composers

Simonton (1989) examined late-life creativity, analyzing 1,919 works by 172 classical composers, and found that their late compositions were less melodically original (and sometimes shorter in duration) but more critically acclaimed. He suggested that composers approaching death may show a last burst of creativity—a “swan-song” effect. Here we refined that analysis, examining 2,270 works by 57 composers, employing variables isomorphic to those of Simonton but re-analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling. Five characteristics of each work (both with and without overall age controls) were used to predict linear or exponential time until death. Results showed few reliable effects, sometimes in the opposite direction than found earlier. Isomorphic regression analyses were also performed on each composer individually; not one case of the swan-song effect as described by Simonton was found. These results suggest that the swan-song phenomenon—at least as presently characterized—is not reliable.

Child’s Play: The Creativity of Older Adults

In this article, I discuss Paul W. Pruyser's view presented in his article "An Essay on Creativity" (Pruyser in Bull Menninger Clin 43:294-353, 1979) that creative persons manifest early childhood qualities of playfulness, curiosity, and pleasure seeking and that adaptation is itself a form of creativity. I then discuss his article "Creativity in Aging Persons" (Pruyser in Bull Menninger Clin 51:425-435, 1987) in which he presents his view that aging itself is a potentially creative process, that creativity among older adults is not limited to the talented few, and that older adulthood has several specific features that are conducive to creativity. Significant among these features are object loss (especially involving human relationships) and functional loss (due to the vicissitudes of aging). Noting his particular emphasis on object loss and its role in late-life creativity, I focus on functional loss, and I emphasize the importance of adaptation in sustaining the creativity of older adults who experience such loss. I illustrate this adaptation by considering well-known painters who in late life suffered visual problems common to older adults. I suggest that in adapting to their visual problems these artists drew on the early childhood qualities (playfulness, curiosity and pleasure seeking) that all creative persons possess and that they are therefore illustrative for other older adults who are experiencing functional losses. I conclude with Erik H. Erikson's (Toys and reasons: stages in the ritualization of experience, W. W. Norton, New York, 1977) and Paul W. Pruyser's (Pastor Psychol 35:120-131, 1986) reflections on the relationship between seeing and hoping.

The creative crone: aging and the poetry of May Sarton and Adrienne Rich

Too often the elderly suffer death by invisibility long before their physical demise, but what can we learn from individuals when they grow old? This book examines the work of two major contemporary women poets to show how they confront aging in a deliberate and constructive way. Sylvia Henneberg reveals how May Sarton and Adrienne Rich have critically evaluated and embraced their roles as elder poets and crones and in doing so offer a powerful resistance to age discrimination.The Creative Crone highlights new dimensions in the works of both writers: one deeply engaged with aging but often overlooked by scholars, the other a prominent poet and feminist but not generally thought of in the context of aging. Henneberg shows how these writers offer radically different but richly complementary strategies for breaking the silence surrounding age. Rich provides an approach to aging so strongly intertwined with other political issues that its complexity may keep us from immediately identifying age as one of her chief concerns. On the other hand, Sarton s direct treatment of aging sensitizes us to its importance and helps us see its significance in such writings as Rich s. Meanwhile, Rich s efforts to politicize age create stimulating contexts for Sarton s work. Henneberg explores elements of these writers individual poems that develop themes of aging, including imagery and symbol, the construction of a persona, and the uses of rhythms to reinforce the themes. She also includes analyses of their fiction and nonfiction works and draws ideas from age studies by scholars such as Margaret Morganroth Gullette, Kathleen Woodward, and Thomas Cole.The lasting impression of these poets is that any evaluation of their writings and any serious study of personal or political identity will benefit from including a critique of aging. Together, Sarton and Rich establish a literary symbiosis that suggests strategies for reassessing and radicalizing our notions about aging, senescence, and literature. This new perspective on their work shows that creative and crone are far from mutually exclusive; considered in tandem, they renew the discourse on late-life creativity.