At 55, Marni Myers is fired up about cyanotype multi-layering. They're investigating the expressive possibilities of alternative photographic processes through cyanotype, layered imagery, hand-applied toners, and embroidered details. Their approach resists precision in favor of painterly textures, imperfect edges, and tactile presence, revealing their hands-on approach within a process historically tied to replication and science. Since they reached 50, their dedication to th

At 52, Heather Powers is exploring mud and clay resist pattern texts on fabrics combined with natural dyes. They're working with indigo, captivated by the shades of blue it yields. There is a process of alchemy that transforms humble plants' leaves into royal shades of indigo. There's been a continuous thread—they're a weaver and fiber artist—throughout their creative career. For the early part, they were focused on developing technical skills and a personal language through

At 50, Nicole Gammie has the chance to experiment and play. They're combining textile art techniques—bobbin lace and passementerie—creating work at the intersection of tradition and innovation. Learning and experimenting with lace and stitching began at an early age with numerous informal opportunities at school and in the community through classes and attending craft groups. Living around much of south-eastern Australia provided chances to investigate a range of lace and emb

Minna Väisänen is making animations with Grok. At 56, they're exploring what happens when digital tools tear down old gatekeeping. You don't need to beg a production house for gear anymore—you just open a laptop and build your own world. The speed and access are wild. And yes, for women especially, that shift mattered. The old art structures were rigged—"genius" was a word reserved for men with handlers and mistresses. Digital tools let women skip the permission stage. You ca

Carmen Dominguez is working with gift tissue as transparencies. At 56, they're doing more woven paper art, experimenting with combining traditional home crafts with abstract imagery. They're exploring the themes of reconciling historical alienation with contemporary reality. They're influenced by absurdist humor—DADA, found art, art brut, home crafting, and graffiti. They must call themselves "entry-level" but they have 20 years of creating art at home. Self-taught. Southern

At 75, Cindy Zimmerman is developing a workshop on making artist books for Banned Books Week at San Diego Central Library. They're also working on Mobile Monument, rolling activist art for protests, parades, and exhibitions, amplifying words purged during the first weeks of the Trump administration. They're more clear now that they decide what to do based on the guidance of their inner voice. What's actually hard about being an artist at this point in their life?  Too little

Up to a year ago, E.M. Miller's medium was food. Now it's raw canvas. At 50, he's a former actor turned musician turned chef turned artist standing at yet another fucking crossroads and deciding if he continues down this rabbit hole of art or not. How's his work different now than it was before 50?  A weaker person or perhaps a lesser experienced person would say the unknown, but he's used to not asking those kinds of questions. What's actually hard about being an artist at t

foto credit Susanna Andreini Susanna Andreini works with the invisible realms—concrete with Elemental Beings. At 60, the stunning results of her recent paintings, the absolutely unexpected colors, motifs, and expression touched her in a very deep way and encouraged her to explore this way of artistic expression even deeper. She's exploring her connection to the Elemental Beings, offering them her canvas as their stage. They dance on it, try out different forms, sometimes as l

Penny Cagney photo by R.R. Jones 2024 At 69, Penny Cagney is working with a new device created by a group of scientists at Arizona State University, including Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek and Prof. Nathan Newman. The technology is called the HyLighter, and it uses 13 programmable monochromatic light beams to simulate how color is perceived across different species and visual systems. She's exploring the science of color and vision, creating oil paintings designed specifically

“Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” ~ Paul Gauguin "I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best."  ~Frida Kahlo   NOTE: This essay is about Tony Pinto’s brilliantly conceived and curated “Self/not Selfie” exhibition currently at the Golden West College Gallery. As its name indicates, the exhibition focuses on artists’ private images of themselves (i.e., self-portraits)—not on contemporary Smartphone photographs

Softness as a weapon. That's the fire. Juniper Sikora, Experiment Artist, working with activated biofilm, 60cm x 90cm, 2025, Photo credit: artist At 54, Juniper Sikora is obsessed with bioplastics, oysters, memory foam faces—materials that hold memory, resilience, and fragility all at once. She's embedding frequency, RFID, and AI into sensory works that whisper rather than shout, but still change the room they enter. It's that delicious tension between tenderness and power th

Behind My Camera: 8x10: 2018 At 70, Kimberly-Ann is converting beaded necklaces into bracelets. She's also just finished entries for two simultaneous shows, and next on her radar is another Call & Response bookmaking project and a local art fair. Her work is eclectic and varied. She works in leather, semi-precious beads, on gourds, with many different types of paint, paper, and found objects, as well as photography. She's been creating art in one form or another since she can

Debra Varvi, resolving a mono print, 2024 At 69, Debra Varvi is working through her dead angels cathedral window series. She's more focused now, more disciplined. And she's still paying bills. There's an insistent energy in creativity. A restless energy that pushes and prods. It collects light, color, shadow, form, lines, ideas, songs, bits of poetry, imagery, random nonsense. It hoards these things in the back of the mind and plays with them constantly. This energy is only s

By Kristine Schomaker I'm watching a Zoom screen where a medical school auditorium at USC is showing a painting of a service dog wearing a medical alert vest, his human hooked up to an IV pole surrounded by pharmaceutical labels and pain scales. The dog's eyes are clear and calm. The human's body is deconstructed into medical diagrams - intestines visible, organs exposed, reduced to systems and symptoms. Ashley Bravin just got out of the hospital with sepsis a week ago. She g

Mural, acrylic, 30'x11', 2025 Donna Budzynski showed up at her first art fair at 60 years old without a tent. She had no clue what she was doing. When she arrived and saw all these younger artists, she immediately thought she didn't belong there because of her age. But she had a fabulous welcome. She was juried into some big fairs in the Twin Cities. People told her how awesome her work was. Customers contacted her wanting pieces. And at 64, she just completed her first 30 ft

So I’m standing—back against some kind of white box column—in a gallery that’s humming and realizing: all these faces and textures and loops of color across the walls are having a long, heated conversation, and I’m the accidental eavesdropper. This isn’t just some reverential “women’s art exhibition”. It’s loud, messy, full of risk—Oak trees, riotous masks, feathery stitched creatures, piles of upcycled joybombs. Three women from one lineage. And the art is straight-up talkin

Photo Courtesy Jennifer Scott Jennifer Scott has been drawing since she could hold a crayon. At 50, she's put in 10,000 hours of practice times 30. She knows what she's doing. She's not studying something anymore—her work is not a performance for others, it's just part of how she communicates. Drawing with pen, being out and part of the world recording spaces—that's what keeps her excited. Her work moves between the immediacy of small black-and-white drawings and the expansiv

Rise of Raven Woman, 2021 self portrait , color photographs mounted on metal with hidden back frame, both performed and shot with tripod by the artist Monet Clark At 57, Monet Clark is making the best work of her life. She's deep in the process of creating performance-based photographic series and performance video works as animal-women hybrid characters. Think elaborately costumed figures posing in sweeping natural landscapes, tripod and interval timer capturing moments that

2020 Pastel Chalk Pencil on Strathmore Paper, 9x12 2020 Photo credit Wes Kroninger. Liza Macawili creates portraits that literally glow...

By Betty Ann Brown “Historically, the portrayal of minorities in movies and television is less than ideal. Whether it’s appearing in...

By Betty Ann Brown An artist is an ordinary person who can take ordinary things and make them special.                    ~Ruth Asawa  ...

Garel Fine Arts - The Other Side Artist Talk August 16th By Kristine Schomaker Sitting in that room at Garel Fine Art Gallery yesterday,...

I'm sitting here looking at photos from Heather Beardsley and Alexandra Carter's upcoming exhibition Stitched and Stained , and I keep...

By Kristine Schomaker What happens when artists are given a remnant of a jute rug and told, go forth and create something inspired by the...

By Betty Ann Brown "The experience of art challenges us to break free from conventional thinking and embrace the extraordinary." ~Henry...

By Kristine Schomaker There's something magical about watching someone talk about what they truly love. Genie Davis lights up when she...

The City of West Hollywood presents Art in Odd Places (AiOP) 2025: VOICE with 35 artist projects that refuse to wait for permission By...

By Kristine Schomaker I spent this afternoon at Nomad and Tryst at Del Amo Crossing and honestly? I needed that more than I knew. Walking...

Alicia Serling treats her energy like a palette. After months of burnout, she's learned to mix equal parts information intake with...

James A. Faulkner works with fragments—pieces of old photographs, vintage ephemera, and found materials that he layers into collages...