Research will inform you that there are many benefits of growing older. To name a few: fewer headaches (especially women), greater self-image, less stress, a happier outlook, and new self-discoveries. The aforementioned, new self-discoveries, were expressively true for my friend Stacey Foisy.
“My husband was concerned that I didn’t have a hobby outside my work. I was a Gerontologist who organized art events. For ten years, I organized a community space for people over 50 to come together to make and share new discoveries in the arts. At the time-I was often asked, and for some reason irked by the questioning-if I was
an artist. I would tell people that I was not an artist, I was a creator. Then one day-three years ago- I was with my step mother-in-law, an abstract artist. Her work all of the sudden caught my eye. I told myself that abstract would fit me so I took an abstract painting class. It was a weird time, my husband had cancer, I wanted something to distract me. It turned out that the painting class was fun. Before the class, I didn’t know anything about painting, I didn’t even know how to use an easel! Then something happened when I put paint on canvas. I couldn’t stop, something was unleased. When I think back, it is with irony, I created The New Studio for people over 50 with the premise that it was never too late to make new discoveries, I didn’t know that eventually it would be me (to make self-discoveries).
In only three years, Stacey picked up a paint brush, identified elements of her artwork, including paint tools, and with intentional unruliness, covered and recovered hundreds of canvas. “At 55 who was going to care what I paint? I began with acrylics and my paintings were abstracts, later I added figures and then went back and forth with acrylics and oils. I usually do single figures. They are really interesting lone figures. Colors are intense. My journey on canvas is crazy, I don’t know where I am going to end up but that is part of the journey.
Stacey might not focus on an outcome, but her artwork has already appeared in 16 gallery shows in the greater Chicago area. “I don’t paint to sell my artwork. You are either going to like it or not. I don’t give a shit.” Oh! I forgot, another benefit of growing older, we just don’t care as much what others think.
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To find more of Stacey's artwork: www.staceyfoisystudio.com