V I S I O N / C R E D O / P E R S P E C T I V E

CIVIC DUTY & THE POLITICS OF CREATIVITY

The creativity we’re born with is undermined and/or hijacked by our cultural norms in a number of increasingly insidious ways — starting in childhood, then worsening and calcifying through adulthood. I see it as a political act — a form of psychic and spiritual violence — to interfere with children’s access to this facet of consciousness that is such a deep resource and a defining characteristic of our humanity. The discouragement of creativity starts pretty young, usually at school and/or at home. It’s often folded into gendered socialization involving repression of the authentic self.

Having a population that’s largely estranged from their own creativity is something I see as a goal of patriarchy, straight white supremacist colonialism, consumerist capitalism, and now technofeudalism. It disconnects us from our authentic power, our true nature, and from Nature itself – with serious, dangerous consequences that can be observed all around.

Therefore, I consider my own acts of creation (however small) and/or my support of other people’s creativity (however directly or indirectly) to be political acts as well; countermeasures against the myriad abusive, destructive, and anti-creativity forces affecting my own life, other people’s lives, animal’s lives, and our planet as a whole.

Creativity is, among other things, an inner mechanism/capacity for curiosity, connection, imagination, vision, healing, nonconformity, and noncompliance!

BEING SCRAPPY / FIRST HAND PRACTICE / EXPERTISE

I don’t have an art degree.

I took whatever classes I had access to in high school and college, and then mainly relied on independent, DIY, therapeutic, and community-based resources to solidify my artistic development (and help cure my depression) after that. And that’s why I’m passionate about the fact that you don’t need a studio, a degree, endless free time, or a trust fund in order to cultivate or reclaim your creativity. I’ve been fearlessly facing and filling up blank paper — thousands of pages of it — with my own art and writing for over 25 years. For me, Expressive Art, creative practices, healing trauma through writing and the arts, etc = My actual life, since the late 1990s. Not a certificate or degree program.

CYCLE-BREAKING

My commitment to cycle-breaking through being in recovery from Complex Trauma [resulting from narcissistic family abuse] and centering creativity & the arts in that process is something that’s made my adult life and timeline different from that of most of my peers. My journey started in my 20s, in the margins, long before the mass adoption of social media, smartphones, and AI – a generation before “therapy speak” and trauma-informed resources/education about things like healthy relationships, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, narcissism, family estrangement issues, etc. These things weren’t named, normalized, or in the zeitgeist when I was first doing the work. “Going no-contact” was not even a term that existed when I did it, and I knew very few people who had. It was highly stigmatized.

The Artist’s Way course book, plus trauma therapy [independent of the mental health industrial complex], plus disengaging from my family of origin were the primary three processes that really got things moving for me, creatively, back then. None of those individual elements would have been as effective/transformative without the other two!

IMPROVISATION

My visual art practices — whichever medium or techniques I’m using — are typically rooted in improvisation. I investigate the dance between choice and chance, seeing what imagery wants to reveal itself once I make contact with the materials. My work is never consciously “about” anything while I’m making it, which helps me maintain a playful, curious approach. I think that practicing improvisation skills in some form is critical for anyone who wants to stay engaged with and responsive to a world that’s changing faster and faster than any of us could have imagined.

WHY?
I make art, and I fill journals (160+ and counting), and I fill sketchbooks to: be present, to metabolize life, to have fun, to take a regular inventory of my inner life, to see and feel time passing, to discover new things, to prevent myself from being a huge asshole, to connect with the larger forces of Nature/Creation, to keep myself company and soothe loneliness, to access regular fulfillment free from external sources, to counteract consumerism, to reclaim my attention, to rebuild and expand my sense of self… So many reasons!