Try Something New
Posted on April 30, 2015 by bob in EdNote
How is your mental acuity? Do common tasks you once did without thinking take longer to complete? There are numerous virtual programs that claim to improve your memory and sharpen your brain. To get my vote they’re going to have to provide more actual clinical research.
However, there is much research about the value of learning new activities in promoting brain health and improving, or at least slowing, memory loss. One of those is learning a new skill or starting a new activity that engages you to the exclusion of all else.
Several months ago I began an oil painting art class with former Montgomery Public School art teacher Judie Hooks. She’s organized The Capital City Artists — a talented group of men and women who paint together every week and hold an exhibit each October at the Armory Learning Arts Center, When I told my husband I was going to learn to paint, his reply was that we’d had the house painted a year ago, and I should learn something else. (His humor knows no bounds.)
I’ve never taken an art class before, not even in school, but it’s a “bucket list” activity I’d always promised myself I’d try during retirement.
After registering for the class, I had a great time buying supplies…the oil paints, the brushes, the palette knives. I searched high and low for the right bag to hold my supplies. After all, what self-respecting artist could hold their head high without the proper supply bag? I felt unbelievably cool purchasing all these items that are the instruments of real, honest-to-God artists.
The intimidation didn’t set in until I’d purchased the first canvas, and it came on suddenly. The gut wrenching, stomach churning realization abruptly hit me: all that white would need to be covered. With oil paints. Worse yet, by me. The canvas was like a new acquaintance that didn’t know English. To communicate, I’d need to speak a language totally foreign to me.
Cue the music. This is where I’m supposed to say how artistically fluent I’ve become. How many great works have poured out of me. Not so. Since November I’ve awkwardly finished three pieces, inching along, but beginning, at least, to understand concepts of tone, temperature and texture.
No masterpieces yet. Not even close. But along the way something significant and totally unexpected has occurred. I’ve discovered a new pursuit in which I can lose myself. It’s been a long while since I sat down to an activity and — seven hours later — found myself still there, busily engaged, wondering where the time went.
Just when you think you can’t learn something new, and your brain is on the way to the beach for a vacation while your body stays at home, it happens. I don’t know if this new endeavor is increasing my mental acuity. I still make way too many trips back up the stairs to retrieve things forgotten on the trip down. But what I do know is my new-found interest is an engaging pursuit that’s forcing me to learn new things. These oil paints, this blank canvas, this palette knife, may or may not be improving my memory, but at 62, they are providing something memorable.
Sandra Polizos, Editor
