There’s no two ways about it. We are living through extraordinary, painful, chaotic times. From the geopolitical, environmental, economic, to the humanitarian: crises are everywhere. And if that wasn’t enough, I’m sure you’ve experienced many levels of turbulence in your daily life: from finding it increasingly hard to get funding, to rising everyday costs, to the difficulty in accessing healthcare or an affordable train ticket.
It’s all a struggle. From the macro to the micro. It can all feel painful and upsetting and disempowering.
In staking a claim to joy, I’m not suggesting that we ignore these very real conditions that can be emotionally draining. Rather, I’d like us to look at what we do control, and what we do care about. And if you have a creative career, or you’d like to centre your creativity in your life more, you are magic.
What happens if you feed the wonder and magic and joy in your creative processes? Can you dream bigger? Can you experiment more? Do you feel emboldened to push past your interalised limitations?
I think it’s worth it. I think dreaming is what we need. I feel as though nuance and depth, they’ve become casualties in our news economy. And so I believe more strongly in the role of art to create space for thought, introspection, nuance, empathy, compassion, and complexity.
Art is magic. I think art is one of the few places that, encountering it, we can feel our emotions in their full spectrum, and then feel them expand and evolve and change. Art can offer a space for transmutation.
I know in my own life that I’ve had to change and evolve and the most powerful thing I’ve experienced is developing a sense of autonomy. I’ve had to find that in terms of letting go of an attachment to outside validation. I’ve also had to take ownership of my health and unpack why I had a long-term headaches. Deinstituionalising myself post-university. But also the playful things: I go out clubbing by myself when I feel like dancing all night. So I observe for myself, in my own experiences the relationship between refusing limitation, fostering autonomy, committing to finding joy, and being an artist as an act of service.
And now, I love working with other artists to help them articulate their own drivers (they might be political, emotional, or spiritual), feed their autonomy, and expand their sense of professional joy. There are moments when outside help can be really useful: if you are returning to your practice, changing your relationship to it, or even healing from your own experiences of disempowerment in your career (we all have those moments). Maybe I can help. If you want to work with me, get in touch.