The real mid-life crisis in the arts.
The myth of the mid-life crisis
What comes to mind when you think of a mid-life crisis? Someone desperately trying to reclaim a sense of youthful freedom by making a series of increasingly immature choices? Someone finally escaping the shackles of an inhibiting situation by making a break for it? The word ‘myth’ has two meanings; 1. a widely held falsehood and 2. a story that persists because it holds within it an important lesson. The myth of the mid-life crisis endures because it points to a need for us to understand and manage life’s bigger transitions and societies failure to see these changes as normal and necessary.
The Great Rumination
Age itself isn't the defining characteristic of what we traditionally term a mid-life crisis. It’s often experienced as a period of stocktaking that can happen at any point in a career, at many points in fact, especially if you are in the arts. A transitional period when the meaning and direction of your career is reassessed. Needs identified, goals restructured and priorities re-evaluated. This is normal, in fact it’s required if you’re a freelance creative. For many, covid-19 was just such a period of transition. I'd heard it recently referred to as 'the great rumination followed by the great resignation'. Chances are, no matter who you are, you know someone who's changed career or moved job as a result of the pandemic. People are of course always moving between careers, we've just rarely experienced so many people doing it at the same time. This has highlighted what career theorists have known since the 70's about careers in the creative sector; they are careers of constant change and adaption. They require creatives to be skilled and competent at doing the same. This we know and have known long enough that it should be explicit in the education we offer creatives of all kinds. However most creatives still report leaving university courses or vocational training feeling ill-equipped for the realities of freelance life.
The Great Resignation.
Larger shifts in careers are often prompted by the insights that arise from a period of focused reflection or as a result of some crises situation which highlights necessary changes in ways we can no longer ignore. Covid offered the entire world both simultaneously. We know that post-covid the theatre industry in particular is experiencing a massive skills shortage, a great resignation of its own. There are many factors that lead creatives to leave their careers in the arts; low rates of pay, lack of career development opportunities, the demands of juggling family and work as a freelancer etc. We know that working in an industry proliferated by freelancers working on a project to project basis, each navigating their own unique career paths, means that such periods of self-evaluation and change are not only to be expected but are vital for career development and sustainability. A cursory glance at any of the studies of artists’ professional experiences from Ireland to the UK and Australia over the last 30yrs evidences this recurring need by all reporting that:
Artists recognise the need for support in managing freelance creative careers because of their complexity (rate of change, juggling multiple roles personal & professional commitment etc)
Everyone agrees that this support is needed but that demand for it far outweighs supply.
(An Irish Arts Council study from 2010 highlights the incongruity here by reporting that 45% of artists interviewed recognised the need for continual professional development to sustain careers, yet only 3% said there was relevant CPD available.)
Should I stay or should I go now.
Looking into an arts sector as an artist in the mid-career stage you could be forgiven for wanting to jump straight into a car with your best friend and drive off into the sunset. While there are of course many systemic issues at play (what problem isn't systemic in some way?), given the lack of career management support many artists feel that there are only two options left to them; staying or going.
I believe the that skills-drain we are seeing in theatre at the moment is very much the result of an entire sector being forced into a mid-life rumination at the same time. The sheer mass of people moving careers now is highlighting the needs that have always been present but were unacknowledged. Before this flood what we had was a steady stream of creatives ruminating and resigning, one at a time, privately and silently. Rates of pay, work stability and opportunities are all a part of the reason but I suspect these fall within a larger frame too. A frame of overall development and progression within the arts. Many had felt they reached a plateau where there seems to be little or no opportunity for growth and development for them within in the arts sector, both personally and professionally. In the absence of clear opportunities for for growth and development you are left to contemplate continued stagnation and increasing obsolescence.
The real mid-life crisis in the arts is one of lack of appropriate support for career development and progression.
Reframing the mid-life crisis as mid-career development.
So what can we do? Firstly we can acknowledge the reality that artists will face multiple points of transition in their careers and need support at each. The career of a visual artist may include transitions to designer - teacher - charity worker - fundraiser - curator - musician, all while maintaining a practice as a visual artist. We need to equip artists for this reality and we need to stop presenting the idea that creative careers have one job description alone that will persist for a lifetime. Instead we need to acknowledge from the beginning that creative careers are ones of constant evolution, with each new stage offering new vistas and fresh opportunities for change, development and innovation.
The mid-life crisis is only seen as a crisis in a society that sees change as something dangerous and to be avoided rather than embraced.
Prevention is better, to be sure.
One sector of the arts already does this and does it very well. In the world of professional dance it is recognised that dancers will face clear points of transition in their careers. This is acknowledged from day one in their training and transitions are supported and facilitated by professional support like the UK’s Dancers Career Development Charity. A dancer knows from the very beginning of their career that they may move to another or that their practice will need to change as they do over time. There is no mid-life ‘crisis’ in dance just mid-life ‘change’. These transitions are recognised and dancers are supported through them. It is time for the wider world of the arts to recognise the same career needs of creatives across the board and begin putting in place appropriate support.
There are projects being piloted which are finding innovative ways of addressing the needs of mid-career creatives. Platform 31 and Breaking Ground are two such examples in Ireland. However, there still exists the well acknowledged need for long term dedicated support. Career management isn't an issue brought into existence by Covid-19 nor does it conveniently occur to only a small selection of artists between 30-45 for the same short period annually, who are lucky enough to be awarded a place on a development programme.
Reflecting & Rising
If a mid-life crisis is about changing how you live in light of new truths then as a sector we have an opportunity to change in light of these new truths. We can chose to ignore them and ignore their knock-on effects or help creatives facilitate their own development within their careers over a lifetime. On an individual level as creatives, I believe we have the opportunity to innovate and transform what we do and how we do it at any point in our careers. Instead of accepting the view of change as crisis, mid-life or otherwise, we’d do better to see it for what it could be; an opportunity to deepen and widen our practice in more fulfilling ways. The Chinese word for crisis translates roughly as ‘change point’. The lesson to be learned by the myth of the mid-life crisis is that we grow by learning (and teaching others) how to use such change points as opportunities to reflect and rise as opposed to ruminate and resign.