“Love LOST LOVE FOUND” IVAN BARNETT AT 79

Pablo Picasso, 1962.

“There is no retirement for an artist, it’s your way of living so there’s no end to it.” — Henry Moore

Reset. Renewal. The privilege of continuing.

In less than a year, I will turn eighty.

Even writing those words feels surreal.

For most of my life, eighty belonged to someone else. It was a number I associated with mentors, collectors, artists I admired, and elders who have already climbed to the top of their creative mountains. Suddenly, I find myself standing at its base, looking up, realizing the climb has become my own.

The number 80 does give me pause.

It truly does.

Lately, I’ve begun to realize that perhaps eighty is less about age than it is about permission—permission to become even more fully myself.

For the past three and a half years, my life has been in pivotal reset mode.

The hardest decision of my professional life was stepping away from the love of my life—my love child—Patina Gallery in Santa Fe. Twenty-five years of pouring every ounce of imagination, discipline, and heart into creating a gallery devoted to soul-stirring works of art and craft suddenly became part of my past. I have often described it like losing a family member. In truth, it felt even more complicated than that. Patina wasn’t simply where I worked. It was where I lived creatively every day.

Leaving it behind required grieving a life I had spent decades making.

The first year of my departure was, at times, unimaginably difficult as I mourned the loss of my “life’s work.”

There were days when I wasn’t certain what needed come next.  At times, I would find myself wandering the rooms of my home feeling deeply abandoned.

For more than eight hundred days, Our Lady of Guadalupe candles burned continuously in my home. Their small flames became companions during what I can only describe as a dark night of the soul. Every evening I would light another candle, hoping somehow that a new light would find me.

It did—but not for quite some time.

When it did arrive, it arrived quietly.

It arrived through Sasha and Theo, my faithful four-legged feline companions, who never once questioned whether tomorrow would be better. They simply stayed close.

It arrived through my journal, which became the most honest friend I’ve ever known. Day after day, page after page, it listened without interruption. It still sits beside me today.  And rarely do I miss a day without pouring my heart and soul out onto its pages.  Some days there are profound awakenings, others not so much.

And, finally and unexpectedly, connection arrived through new love.

Finding personal love again at seventy-seven was not something I anticipated. After everything that had unfolded in 2023 and 2024, I assumed certain chapters of my life had already been written. Instead, life surprised me. The romantic gift of love reminded me that endings are rarely as final as they appear.

This new love of my life gave me permission to continue to breathe again…to once again feel alive.

As did my work.

In the middle of all the introspection and uncertainty, I somehow managed to launch Serious Play, my consultancy devoted to helping artists and creative organizations discover more of their untold stories. I also began a new body of found-object collages in my studio. Today those pieces remain carefully boxed in my new studio, waiting patiently for completion.

Sometimes people ask if that frustrates me.

Not really.

The work isn’t abandoned.

It’s simply waiting for my return.

And perhaps, in some ways, so have I.

Martha Graham in Dark Meadow, 1921.

As I approach eighty, I find myself thinking about artists who refused to surrender to their age or physical limitation.

Claude Monet lost much of the clarity of his vision because of cataracts, yet some of his greatest Water Lilies emerged during those years of impaired sight as he continued reimagining color, light, and scale. His physical limitations became part of the language of the work rather than the end of it.

Georgia O’Keeffe faced severe macular degeneration and eventually required assistants to continue creating. Nearly blind, she said the desire to create never left her. It simply found another path. She continued making art well into her nineties because imagination remained stronger than failing eyesight.

Henri Matisse, confined to a wheelchair and a hospital bed, transformed scissors, paper, and color into one of the most revolutionary chapters in modern art. His cut-outs weren’t a compromise. They became a new beginning for the world to fall in love with.

Louise Bourgeois created some of her most powerful sculptures after turning eighty. Those monumental spiders and haunting Cells carried the emotional weight of an entire lifetime. She proved that artistic maturity isn’t measured by age or years, but by artistic honesty.

Carmen Herrera painted in relative obscurity for decades before the world finally recognized her brilliance in her eighties and nineties. She never stopped showing up in the studio simply because recognition had yet to arrive in her life.

Pablo Picasso remained astonishingly prolific into his eighties, continuing to experiment fearlessly rather than repeating himself. He never seemed interested in protecting a legacy. He remained obsessively curious until his last breath.

Martha Graham continued choreographing long after she could no longer dance. Her body changed, but her vision never did.

Tony Bennett continued performing and painting into his later years, reminding us that creativity often survives long after memory, strength, or certainty begin to fade.

Every one of these artists was ahead of their time artistically.

None waited for perfect circumstances.

None allowed physical limitations to define the boundaries of imagination.

As I ponder their lives, I realize I have never aspired to become famous.  .

My aspiration has always been more modest, knowing that greatness only knocks at a rare few. 

Against considerable odds, I managed to do exactly that, make a respectable life as an artist.

For more than fifty years I have supported myself through creativity—as a studio artist, curator, creative director, storyteller, consultant, mentor, and photographer. Looking back, I feel something I perhaps haven’t allowed myself to feel often enough.

Pride.

Not because everything I did worked.

Not because every dream came true.

But because I stayed with it.

That may be the greatest accomplishment any artist can lay claim to?

“Until the age of 70, nothing I drew was worthy of notice. At 73 years I was somewhat able to fathom the growth of plants and trees… Thus when I reach 80 years, I hope to have made increasing progress…” — Katsushika Hokusai

I have written many times over the past several years about the daunting statistics facing galleries, artists, and creative entrepreneurs. The odds have never been especially generous.

Yet here I am.

Still standing.

Still curious.

Still making notes in my journal.

Still collecting rusted fragments, weathered wood, forgotten metal, and objects carrying invisible histories.

Still believing my stories matter.

There are portfolios waiting to be opened.

Boxes waiting to be unpacked.

Collages waiting for one more gesture.

Sometimes I imagine opening those boxes months from now.

Georgia will be there.

Claude will be there.

Pablo.

Martha.

Louise.

Carmen.

Tony.

Not literally, of course, but quietly waiting to greet me.

They will remind me that eighty has never been the finish line.

It has often been another beginning.

The fact of the matter is…

I don’t really have a choice.

Creating is what I know; making is what I do.

It has introduced me to extraordinary people. It gave me Patina. It carried me through heartbreak. It introduced me to new love when I thought love had already passed me by. It gave me purpose when purpose seemed impossible to find.

Most importantly, it carried me through my darkest season.

Creatives have understood something for thousands of years that the rest of the world usually forgets or even overlooks.

The creative act can save our lives.

Not because it removes grief.

Not because it erases loneliness.

Not because it promises success.

It saves us because every painting, every dance, every poem, every photograph, every collage, every melody, every page in a journal quietly whispers the same thing:

Claude Monet, 1920.

Continue.

Less than a year from eighty, I find that whisper becoming louder.

One morning, soon, I will untie the first portfolio.

I’ll lift the lid from the first box.

I’ll return to those unfinished collages waiting so patiently in my new studio.

And I suspect they’ll greet me as old friends.

The truth is that they were never waiting for perfection.

They were only waiting for me.

And perhaps that is the greatest lesson of this season of my life.

We are never truly finished.

As long as curiosity survives…

As long as hope survives…and most of all

As long as love survives…”so onward.”

“The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” — Frank Lloyd Wright