What does your 80 year old self tell you?

Written By Dr Pene Schmidt

“It’s easy to forget how wise we can be. We resist our internal wisdom due to any number of reasons, such as fear, fatigue, or inconvenience. We race through our hyperactive lives, so busy with the details of day-to-day living that we end up feeling disconnected from ourselves and each other. But what’s great about the 80-year-old self is that no matter how frantic we get, she is always readily available to us. She is present within each of us, reminding us we can be the best version of ourselves, not through some colossal effort at personal reinvention, but simply by slowing down. We just have to take a moment to pay attention and list.” Susan O’Malley

“Susan O’Malley (pictured above) believed deeply in the capacity of art to have a positive impact on people’s lives - and her art certainly had a lasting impact on me.

In 2015, I was lucky enough to see Susan’s final project at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In this project, Susan had asked 100 strangers between the ages of 7 and 88 a simple question…"Imagine you had the opportunity to time travel and meet yourself at eighty, to sit down and have a cup of tea with your eighty-year old self...You muster the courage and ask her for advice...What does she tell you?" 

Susan turned the artworks into 81 text based images and public art installations in the San Francisco Bay Area. But a tragic testament to the very premise of the project struck when Susan, unexpectedly died. She was 38 and one week short of delivering twin girls- both of whom also died. 

The prints in the exhibition (pictured below) reflected her participants inner wisdom, mirroring back things that deep down they already knew. Susan had a clear intention to support, inspire and illuminate - and she continues to do this through her powerful and bittersweet legacy. So what advice does your 80 year old self have for you today?”

In memory of Susan, donations may be made to the Susan O'Malley Memorial Fund for the Arts to support emerging artists and to commission a permanent installation of Susan’s work.