I love the safety, ease and simplicity of a wine-and-paint party. I always learn something new, and it is nice to just focus on the painting process itself without worrying about what it means or what I want to say. It is enjoyable and relaxing, and a little silly. None of us take ourselves too seriously and maybe we are also all a little tipsy. What a joy!

But the resulting painting is not my art. 

I feel no connection to what I make in a paint party. 

I find a lot of more advanced art classes are similar - you are learning something about the teacher's approach and technique. I have been frustrated in art classes I’ve taken in the last few years because techniques, skills or materials aren’t what I want to learn - no fault of the instructor. I was chasing a shiny new thing, not understanding what I needed. 

For example, a few years ago I took an online printmaking class. I was really excited about meeting some other artists and refreshing my artistic life. All of the techniques were ones I have already used and even taught myself. There was not really much for me to learn. That wasn’t what I was seeking, but that’s what the class was. I realized this too late, when I asked the teacher if there was any kind of prompt she had to offer us for something to explore in our prints. She looked at me blankly - clearly that was my responsibility. 

But it was also my need. I wasn’t searching for a new medium through which to express myself, I was searching for techniques for how to express myself in a new way using materials I was already skilled in. 

The teacher  is there to share their wisdom, and often they can’t help you find your own unique way. It is like a vision quest, perhaps. Is it something you must do on your own?

I think a lot of artists have the “curse of knowledge” when it comes to this. They know that if they just start working, new directions will emerge from the work itself. I know this too. But sometimes that stops working. Sometimes you really have come to the end of a vein of gold. 

For years I struggled with questions like:

• I have a thousand ideas, how do I pick one?
• How do I express awkwardness in my art without drawing a nerdy girl standing in the corner? Is there any other way to explore that?
• How do I explore my spiritual side in my art without it looking like an ad for some kind of quantum law of attraction herbal supplements?
• Is it okay for me to explore archetypes in my art if I don’t know anything about Jung?
• Am I allowed to make art about my eco anxiety, or my hesitation to be more social justice oriented if I’m not an activist?
• How do I synthesize my intellectual interests with my spiritual yearning with my day-to-day experience that I want to express my feelings about? Do I have to pick one? How do I pick?

And the only advice I ever got was “the answer is in the studio, the answer is in the work”
Yes, but I felt like my tires were in mud - I was doing the work but didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere.

Earlier this year I was creating “creativity catalysts.” The intention was to offer an open ended concept to explore. We have art classes to learn technique, things like Inktober that offer specific noun-based prompts or illustrators. I wanted a different kind of prompt, one that took me deeper into who I am as an artist and my artistic destiny. Not a map, but a stronger hint. 

I wanted to go on a journey, to dig deeper in my experience of myself through some kind of lens, to catharticly express my suppressed feelings and current life experiences onto the paper/canvas/board and then to resolve it through art. I’d always been able to do that but for some reason stopped being able to (I know the reason. It’s staring at me in my peripheral vision as I write this, chuckling at my avoidant drama).

I don’t want my art to be a bypass. I don’t want to suppress or overlook what is deeper inside me. I want it to be an experience that heals. Coach Vanessa Carvalho in a recent conversation said it well when she said “I think that there is a big connection of the soul between using your hands to create something and curing yourself inside.”

I want my art to reflect both the pain and the peace. Bittersweet. Gallows humor. Perfectly imperfect.

I use the word “deep” a lot when I am writing about this. It has never felt like quite the right word. 
I think the right word is “honest.”

I want to offer a journey where we can be honest and vulnerable about our lived experience in the now, get it out in a cathartic way, and then use that as fodder for a transformational artistic experience. 
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This is what I am creating. If you are interested, join my email list (and get a freebie! Many freebies!!)

It's almost summer solstice and that means we are already half way through 2024. 

There are a lot of planners and goal setting that happen in January. But this is a great time to review those goals and re-set for the second half of the year. 

This workbook will help you explore and set goals and it's fun. Do it with a friend for extra energy and power - I do this every year with friends. 

Say hi in the comments if you download it! 

Kiki Smith is one of my favorite artists. When I look at her work I deflate. I know she was born into the biz and had access to resources and connections that enabled her to fully actualize her artistic vision. I feel defeated and limited. 

It’s hard for me to see how little ole me matters when there is someone like Kiki Smith, or Rithika Merchant or Michael McGrath making work that makes me feel obsolete. This feeling that in order for our art to matter, we are in competition with those that inspire us, and that we have to surpass them in order to have value, or a place. 

We get told a lot that our art matters, that we matter. Yeah, yeah, yeah , whatever, sure.

It’s easy to know we matter intellectually but to really feel it in your bones that you matter is a whole other thing. I truly doubted the truth of it, and felt that the cost of coming to truly believe I matter was to become an insufferable spiritual-bypassing selfish twat. But this is not true. 

The most recent Art Biz podcast episode was about the book "Must Be Nice" that addresses the jealousy and defeat many of us feel. In the interview the author Jason Kotecki talks about building up your own unique 'talent stack" and knowing which "game" you are playing to help appreciate your unique contributions. 

We can and should do this for our own personal development. But it's actually deeply important we do it in order to build an entirely new way of living a good life.

Many of us artists and coaches are trying to define our lives outside of the corporate/capitalist/colonialist machine. We want to fully actualize our potential but it feels like the inhumane march of progress is leaving us behind or making us feel conflicted. There is so much to take into account, our need to survive, our desire to thrive, our values that we all ALL should have access to basic dignity and safety and feeling guilty and angst-ridden over the experiences others have of poverty and violence. How dare I ask for more?

We also struggle to find meaning, our individual value and contribution. We struggle with “why bother” and feeling minuscule and average and amateurish and forced to be a dilettante because we also work and raise families. We feel like "something in me is still unexpressed and I fear I will fall ill or die before I am able to get at it."

Yesterday I had the thought that scientists are mostly discovering what is NOT true. Collectively as artists, coaches, and creators, our attempts to live our best lives, even if we fail, are vitally important. 

Maybe I sound like a lunatic, but it feels like with AI and corporate greed that something is coming to a head and we who are trying to build a life outside of all of that are FIGURING OUT HOW TO DO IT, which means finding out mostly what does not work. Our “failure” contributes to the larger quest. Understanding why things don’t work, incorporating our values and concerns for humanity---how are we going to live a better life, how are we ACTUALLY going to build this new way?

This is why your art, your creative life is important, because it is part of a cultural movement to live your best life. That is radical and quietly revolutionary.

Deciding that you matter and putting your work out there, asking for support, building a network, supporting each other, daring to be a business person, this is deeply important work and each person’s experience of it, not just the shiny successful stars, but each of us trying, it is part of a giant collective movement. It is part of what is changing the world. We are going to be examples to others trying to do the same. We are helping to figure out how to do it, from all these different perspectives - including yours!

It is really hard to live outside of the “system” and make your work. We each have our individual needs and ability to say no to things we don't want to do. The more we can each individually find a way to live our unique actualize life, the more we can do it in a way that acknowledges and takes responsibility to the well being of all humans, the more we can take risks to tell the truth, make the thing, ask for support, give support, the stronger this alternative way of living becomes. 

It is not just okay for you to make your creative work and put it out there, and define ways to be supported in making it - this work is truly part of what will save us. 

What are you trying to build in the world? Where do you need support? Let me know in the comments :)

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Context Clues:

1) Listen to the latest The Art Biz podcast episode with Jason Kotecki
https://artbizsuccess.com/kotecki-comparison/

2) Kiki Smith’s art, specifically this piece https://www.artsy.net/artwork/kiki-smith-harbor-2

3) Simone Grace-Seoul (I am in her writing class and she is amazing)  https://www.instagram.com/p/Cw1zHRbuXGR/?img_index=1