Starting Over with a Creative Life featuring Nell Painter

About this episode

Nell Painter discusses her transition from academia to art school at 65 and the insights gained from her journey.

In this episode, we talk to the renowned historian and bestselling author Nell Painter, who left her wildly successful academic career to enter art school at the age of 65 — an experience she documented in her book, Old in Art School, A Memoir of Starting Over, which was named a National Book Critics Circle finalist. We talk about working with constraints, overcoming unfair criticism, healthy creative addictions like yarn and ink, and we even talk about the role of women without children. At 82, Nell shows no signs of slowing down. It’s an episode you don’t want to miss.

People in this episode

Host: Tricia Rose Burt

Guest: Nell Painter

Topics covered

• creative life
• starting over
• art education
• women in art
• aging
• overcoming criticism

Keywords

• Nell Painter
• art school
• memoir
• creative process
• women artists
• aging in art
• criticism

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Old in Art School, A Memoir of Starting Over

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