On new work

Seneca wrote that line in his final years, in a long correspondence with a younger friend named Lucilius. He was a man who had already lived several lives: tutor and speechwriter to an emperor, exiled to Corsica, recalled to power, and by the time of these letters slowly withdrawing from public affairs to write. He was not describing the pleasant idea that learning is nice. He meant that the work of becoming a person is never finished, and that age is no excuse to stop starting.

This week a gallery in Chicago opened a show of new paintings. The Parliament-Funkadelic leader's works are on view through Sept. 5 at Mariane Ibrahim Gallery in West Town. The painter is George Clinton, who is eighty-five and who spent most of his life making sound, not images. He did not need to pick up a brush. He picked it up anyway. A life that has already earned its rest can still open a door it has never walked through.