Overcoming the mid-career slump

A gap in opportunities and various pressures raise the question of how we can better support artists through what can often be a mid-career slump.
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Life as a mid-career artist can often feel like it’s lived from the shadows. No longer tagged with ‘emerging’ ‘new’ and ‘exciting,’ and without the celebrity of an established artist or posthumous acclaim, life in the middle can pass by unnoticed.

Not only does the media spotlight tend to be turned from the mid-career artist, but it is felt that opportunities diminish with age and experience.

So much so that when opportunities are created, they are met with the elated sigh – ‘Finally!’

The recent recognition of mid-career artists and writers through Copyright Agency’s new $100,000 a year Create Career Fund is one such example.  

‘There is something compelling about thinking you have discovered an emerging talent with extraordinary promise, and something innately interesting about an established man or women of letters, and so people who are not in those categories may get overlooked,’ said Copyright Agency CEO Adam Suckling.

‘But what this fund is about is being really positive and saying that there are marvellous writers in that group that we should be supporting,’ he added.

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Madeleine Dore
About the Author
Madeleine Dore is a freelance writer and founder of Extraordinary Routines, an interview project exploring the intersection between creativity and imperfection. She is the previous Deputy Editor at ArtsHub. Follow her on Twitter at @RoutineCurator