Is getting out of your own head added time?

It’s true painting every day wouldn’t suit everybody, but it suits me. If you do that, you live in the now. Painters can live a long time. They either die young or make it to ripe old ages like Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, or my old friend Gillian Ayres. Do you know why? Because when you are painting, you’re so involved you can get out of yourself. Well, if you can do that, that’s added time. I am eighty-two and I feel fine. Maybe I walk slower.

– David Hockney

Hockney explains how when you age you notice more. I wonder if this applies to painters only. The narrative seems to be as you age, you notice less. You’re less alert. You care less. Maybe Hockney debunks those notions.

You notice more with each successive year; I am doing that now. I can go in and look at things more closely, such as a blossom. I took a branch and brought it in here to draw as a still life. It didn’t last long. I had to draw it in about four or five hours. It just rots when you bring it inside and lay it on a sheet of paper. It’s temporary, but most things are.

David Hockney

Gayford, Martin, and Hockney, David. Spring Cannot Be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy. United Kingdom, Thames & Hudson, 2021. pp205,207