SENTINEL WATCH May 2, 2005 Issue

WHEN RETIRING ISN'T AN OPTION

WARREN BOLON

IF YOU'RE EVER BLESSED to see a museum show that includes art from the last year of Henri Matisse's life, you will be seeing works that he drew or painted from his sickbed. It's extraordinary what he accomplished by employing the little strength he had. I like to think Matisse never stopped working because he couldn't turn off the flow of ideas.

In fact, isn't the term retired artist almost an oxymoron? After all, the ultimate Creator never retires from creating. Being never stops being new. So could we, "the created," really ever stop develping? The couch-potato life may have its allure—and I've done my share of flopping on the sofa to watch a baseball game, or in better moments to read—but something in me says it could never be healthy or satisfying to retreat from the demand to grow spiritually. Do we really have the option to quit the search for whatever gives life meaning and purpose?

The anxieties that come with aging can trouble workers in any profession or trade. But artists face life's proverbial and actual blank canvases every time their latest work is completed. The contemporary British artist Damien Hirst said, "I suppose a fear of running out of ideas is a fear of death."

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