The CReative Journey.
Each year I experience life through a filter, a singular word that becomes clear through experience and reflection. I was baffled to realize that my words were, at the very core, chapters for returning to creativity. Each word captures a theme for all the internal and emotional work required to create, especially if creativity is impacted in any way by trauma, fear, or loss.
Chapter 5: ENDURANCE or Storytelling. (2025)
Text (Coming soon)
Chapter 5: SLOWNESS. (2024)
Transitions continued, and instead of bracing against failure and fear, I made the decision to be slow. Be slow and intentional. Being in my power = being grounded, and in order to be grounded, I need slowness and time. In true cycles, February and March of 2024 also brought a lot of tumult and change — this time, I responded with slowness, and found that in the unpredictability and deconstruction, there was a story that was waiting to be heard and brought to life. (Coming soon)
Chapter 4: Failure. (2023)
This is new, and I will revisit this at the end of the year. In February it became crystal clear, through a series of hard turns, constant transitions, and a series of mental breakdowns, that an inevitable part of creation as a practice is failure as a practice. A bit part of this journey was learning the value of a hypothesis, and providing the nurturing space for failure to appear and tell you its story. The less afraid you are of it, the more you embrace failure as information and create safety pathways for yourself, the more courage and clarity you develop. Click here to follow my journey on of failure as a partner to creativity. (Coming soon)
Chapter 3: courage. (2022)
After spending 2021 returning to a sense of safety, I was determined to make “play!” my word of the year again. Ok so boom, another barrier: In order to play, I had to spend a full year exploring what courage meant to me. Not just inside of art, but outside of art in my everyday life. I had not realized how much courage I had lost in the past decade. I reflect often on the amount of energy courage takes after a series of life-altering experiences that - again - redefine your sense of what is and is not safe. Follow that journey here. (Coming soon)
Chapter 2: safety. (2021)
I was determined in 2021 to make my word about “Play.” So much of creativity is letting yourself experiment, try new things, and learn from the process. But I grappled with it in a very deep and subconscious way. I quickly recognized one critical and overlooked component of creative play: Safety. One needs to have a sense of safety — an unshakeable trust that they can fail, and still be safe — to know that it is okay to experiment, fail, and try again. This is where I believe trauma and creativity have a very intertwined relationship, as trauma restricts your sense of safety into a very narrow and uncertain space. Follow that journey here. (Coming soon)
Chapter 1: The return. (2020)
In 2019 I took a sabbatical from work after 14 years in nonprofit and 19 years of “always having a job.” This was a difficult time for my mental health, and with the pandemic arriving shortly after, I found myself needing to work through a lot of resurfaced trauma and PTSD. For the first time in my life, I considered what it meant to be a full-time creative. And I instantly experienced stubborn barriers and crippling fear. Creativity often came up in therapy, and I am grateful for it. Click here to read about the journey of returning to my creative self after years of putting her aside. (Coming soon)