You only have one period of hitting your stride as an artist, a new study claims

The study looks at the phenomenon known as the “hot streak”, and how the majority of artists and creative types will only have one in their lifetime.

What to think of this, I would not be willing for people to think that once they burn out of strong creativity, you will never get it back. It is possible for some to get a second streak later in life, or you could be one of the gifted ones that will continue to receive them as long as the cognitive ability is there.

In greater detail, the initial streak is said to be when you make your best work, and interestingly enough could be before your second best work is made. This is not to say that artists who slow down will only have worse work to look forward to (as we clearly see in some of the forum’s more renowned users), but I can relate to this study as the rate of making new work slows down more than 600 ideas later). If you’re lucky, you could replace some of the time once spent creating to something spent doing a job you want to have and getting paychecks.

Is the study accurate, and do you think you have a solid game plan for creating late into life?

I have my doubts in this. An old old man can train himself to do things. The old old man is able to build strength and get better. Maybe what the research observed are great artist who worked too much. They worked so much they became tired of it, this caused them to make lower qualilty artwork.

It’s possible those artist didn’t retain all of their wisdom/memory. They might have lost some of their memory and needed to retake art classes, and relearn the old subjects, such as animal anatomy. The brain is constainly forgetting things, it’s only if we keep it under refresh.

Like the muscle of the body, they wax away if not excersised.

I read an article many years ago that tole me to keep all of my drawings. I would need them to determine if I was getting better or worse. They said sometimes artist get worse, and need to fix things.

I haven’t read this study, and probably I never will… The reason is that artists evolve and are in constant change and discovery. The only streak I can notice is not from the artists themselves but from the market (which is in a big known chaos).

Also, advertising this kind of «theories» normally only blocks even more any creativity an artist have still to find.

“One size fits all” theories are always wrong. Humans are more complex than that.

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I read this, and I think it’s far too over-generalizing if not desperate to quantify things otherwise defying quantification.

Citations and auctions make for very limited data sets which could never narrate the larger story of human creativity.

Interesting to see there were no references to poets, writers, or musicians. Or how about programmers? As one, I consider that to be a creative and even an artistic venture at times, even with all its logic and math, which I tend to see as symmetrical, organic, and beautiful.

I’ve coded well over a million lines of code in my lifetime, written thousands of poems, performed and recorded thousands of songs (mostly improvisational), painted, sculpted, used Blender at least as frequently, and I know my best works are always ahead of me despite having experienced various so-called “hot streaks” at various times along the way.

And I know mostly anyone, if given the chance to develop their intellectual and creative talents beyond the basics could easily do that and more.

Which is to say: everyone could be amazing, and not just for a little while, I believe.

We need to transcend the quantifiable, move past self-defeating thinking and bit-driven beliefs.

We must reject society’s repeated attempts to limit our creative and intellectual abilities.

We may choose to become smarter, better artists, musicians, coders, writers, poets, persons - whatever - even as we may have to push through often anachronistically constraining and ageist societal tendencies asserting limitations and self-defeating Warholian “15 minutes of fame” mentalities meant to abridge the potential of individuals.

That does not have to be the case, nor is it ever really so, once you really think about it: it is what you choose to believe and to become at nearly any age.

If you choose to believe your chances of being a great artist have passed, or never arrived, that is an unfortunate choice, something defeatist in both tone and end effect, making it all the more unlikely good or great art would ever be achievable again, until at least new thinking takes root in the mind.

Thank goodness for neuroplasticity!

I think we could use some fresh thinking when faced with such “studies.”

Refuse restrictions on positive human potentials. Renounce reductive reasoning, especially wherever it writes someone off without good reason.

Realize you could and should be amazing, to no particular end, if you really wished to be so and were willing and able to invest in the development of your talents to nurture that reality.

And “amazing” does not have to translate to monetary success or fame. Those were never accurate indicators of any lasting goodness. People can be and are awesome in subtle yet substantial ways.

Never succumb blindly to negators and naysayers and the narrow-minded. Their negativity, even when combined, is really no match for your creative positivity, if you truly realized how powerful it could be when developed and focused with purpose, peace of mind, and passion.

Let nothing or no one (above all, yourself) stand between you and the better whatever you could become.

I believe, ultimately, better individuals can help contribute to a more healthy, compassionate, and collectively creative and peaceful society, a stronger product of abilities acknowledged and mutually respected, potentials more likely to be fulfilled than forsaken, with greater overall self-fulfillment and inner peace, and with artistic and scientific advances as immeasurable as they are inspiring and influential in the betterment of humanity.

I believe this will happen when we individually and then collectively will it to be so.

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That my friend, was brilliant. The world needs more people who can think for themselves and not be limited by what they are told.

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Being optimistic certainly is supier way of life compared too pessismestic. When one is enslaved by pessismestic demons, it’ can be painful to turn towards optimistic way of life. That’s a reason some of those people stay that way.

Realistically, too general. Just something to read, if there’s nothing better to do.
One can also read horoscope, if it amuses ones mind.