50 Over 50: Still Here, Still Pushing - Jalila Bell's Steampunk Rebellion
- Kristine Schomaker
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Lately in the studio, Jalila Bell is fired up clearing space for new work and diving into their steampunk series—where imagination, invention, and rebellion collide.
At 50, hitting that milestone has powered them up and made them bolder. They're being pushier with mixed-media materials, mashing together effigy and new worlds. With their new steampunk series, they're breaking rules about what "their art" looks like, bending reality, and letting their imagination lead the charge.
What's actually hard about being an artist at this point? Time, energy, and financial pressure are constant battles, but they have more clarity and fearlessness than ever before. They make what they want, how they want, and they do it unapologetically. Every piece they make is proof they're still here, still pushing, still imagining.
Someone just turned 50 and wants to start making art—what do they tell them? Grab the closest thing to you and start to dream and build.
Do they try to keep up with what matters in the art world? They follow a lot of other artists online for inspiration, and at the end of the day they make what's important to them from gut feeling.
What do artists their age bring to the table that younger artists don't? Artists in our fifties bring a lifetime of experience to our respective canvases. We make commentary on a world passed, while laying a foundation for the future too.
What are they working on next? Right now, they're focused on finding the perfect gallery placement for Belly of the Beast and securing a permanent home for the full collection. Their attention is on making sure these nine works live together as a bold, immersive experience, and clearing the path for them to make more work in their studio.
What keeps them going when everything feels impossible? Knowing that the legacy is in the continued work and that the work will live on after them.
What do they wish they'd known when they were younger? They can give themselves permission to call themselves an artist. No one else can decide that for them.
Working in their studio keeps every day fresh and creative.
Being an artist over 50 means both freedom and friction, because life's responsibilities make studio time precious. They have decades of experience now that give them clarity and boldness in vision. They work in mixed media, found objects, and layered imagery to explore identity, ancestry, resistance, and transformation.
Their Belly of the Beast collection has nine immersive works that are a testament to their survival, imagination, and unapologetic storytelling. Each piece fuses memory, spirituality, and social critique, creating altars, protests, and dreams all at once. Right now, their focus is on gallery placement for the collection and finding it a permanent home, ensuring these works are experienced together, as they were meant to be: fearless, alive, and unforgettable.
Jalila Bell, also known as @TroubleEsquire, is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, educator, and attorney whose work traces the fault lines between memory, justice, and transformation. Raised in Oakland in "the Nation" and homeschooled in discipline and self-determination, they came of age in San Francisco before attending Mills College. For more than two decades, Jalila practiced law in New York City, litigating on behalf of workers, tenants, artists, and women, defending human rights and dignity.
Today, their creative practice stands at the crossroads of advocacy and art. Through their acclaimed Belly of the Beast collection, they reclaim sovereignty and spiritual endurance, transforming found materials and ancestral memory into living archives of resistance. As an educator, they build spaces for radical imagination, inviting critical inquiry as a form of freedom. They are the Director and Producer of the award-winning documentary Culture Connects Us, which celebrates culture as a universal language of healing and transformation. Recently, they helped lead the reopening of the historic Berkeley Flea Market, sustaining a cornerstone of Bay Area creativity and commerce.
At 50, they're powered up and bolder. They're breaking rules, bending reality, letting imagination lead the charge. Time, energy, and financial pressure are constant battles, but they have more clarity and fearlessness than ever before.
Every piece they make is proof they're still here, still pushing, still imagining.
You can give yourself permission to call yourself an artist. No one else can decide that for you.
Connect with Jalila: Website: kajecreative.com Instagram: @TROUBLEESQUIRE
JOIN US: 50 OVER 50
Inspired by Sharon Louden's "Last Artist Standing," we're seeking artists 50+ who are still creating, still contributing, still leading.
ONGOING - NO DEADLINE - FREE
Share your story:
1 photo of you creating
1 artwork image (title, medium, size, year)
Your insights on sustaining creativity through life's challenges
Because mature artists aren't just surviving—they're thriving, leading, and lighting the way.
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