A month ago, I launched the Memphis Creative Index and asked everyone who signed up a few questions about that same dream: how long they’ve been creative, how they earn, what gets in their way, and what would help them get closer to the life they want. 150 of them opted into the research.

I figured time and money would top the list of what holds Memphis Creatives back. I was right about those (and they definitely hold me back). The barrier I did not see coming outranked them both, and it’s the one that’s reshaped how I think about what this city’s creatives need. More on that below.

I know I’m not the only one with this kind of dream. I know there are so many creatives out there who want to do what they choose with their innate talents and creative drive on their own schedule, with time to think deeply. I wanted the data to tell me where the dream breaks down.

Much of creative living gets sucked dry by the constraints of daily rules we are supposedly supposed to follow, rules that were drilled into us through schooling based on a curriculum that maximizes productivity over the inherent need to develop our own interests. Most of us are playing a game we continually lose. I think that affects our self-esteem without realizing it.

Maybe my motivation for finding my own way, to being my own boss, is as simple as this: I hate being told what to do, in the creative sense. Don’t insist one way works better than my intuition. Don’t tell me what colors to choose.

Of the 150 creatives in the research, 138 answered the income question. Of those, 52 (38%) make their art part-time around a day job, and 84 (61%) don’t make a full-time living from their art/creative inclinations.

The biggest barrier to creative fulfillment in Memphis

I’ll start with my own: time. I have a day job. I’m good at my day job. But I hate hate hate (hate hate) that I have to be in one location for 8 hours a day at a set time every day. I feel trapped and have felt this way since entering the workforce, via McDonald’s, at the age of 15. I have tried to be at peace with it, but the anxiety of the claustrophobia can be unbearable sometimes. My real work—building Like Really Creative, writing, visual art—is demoted to after-day-job hours or the weekend. As someone who is naturally inclined to rest (look up Human Design Projectors), I don’t often get to rest as much as I need. It is a risk (a sacrifice, if you will) I take to fulfill the dream I mentioned above.

Next would be money. I would love to hire a team, but I need more time to make more strategic decisions to make more recurring revenue. That is something I would hire someone for: to figure out how to do this sustainably. Anyway.

What is the number one barrier for the 150 Memphis creatives? Reaching an audience/marketing reach.

We live in an attention economy guarded by a tricky, fickle algorithm across multiple platforms that takes daily investigation and experimentation to figure out. Every week, the head of Instagram releases a new feature that is somehow more confusing than the last and requires a strategy overhaul in order to gain maximum reach. But that’s a whole other article. Social media strategy is its own booming job field for a reason.

Memphis has so much talent. So much talent that even the most brilliant things can get buried in endless scrolls and short attention spans. How do you reach an audience when strategies to reach an audience can be as complicated as figuring out the Fibonacci sequence (which I assume was complicated to figure out)?

Daily social media upkeep is also exhausting. It’s time-consuming. We could do more public things without social media, but again, the lack of time eats away at that goal. And it makes sense: time and funding are tied for second as the biggest barrier behind reaching an audience. According to the Index research, when someone says they have no time, you can follow the thread and see that the connection is to having a day job that’s needed to pay the bills.

What would help the most?

Of the 131 who answered “What would help the most?”, half named paid gigs, more than any other option. Right behind it was exposure and features, named by 48%. Because people could choose more than one, these aren’t first-place votes so much as a show of hands: half the room raised theirs for paid work, and nearly half for being seen.

We want to be seen. Being seen builds creative confidence. Having creative confidence decreases social anxiety. Decreased social anxiety can lead to finding and being part of a community. Being part of a community reinforces our creative living. This is a crucial cycle that keeps us connected to our True Creative Selves. External validation, in healthy doses (speaking to myself more than anything), contributes to our social and biological health. We open up more; we fear less.

When we fear less, we take more risks. We follow our creative curiosities, and naturally, more paths open because we have the time to deepen these skills. With greater skills, we can get paid gigs and eventually pay the bills with less stress. I’m not saying the larger goal is to commodify our skills to feed the machine. The goal is more freedom to be ourselves, free from arbitrary constraints and mandatory schedules.

The grant question

What was really interesting to me was the results from the grant question, especially since funding was selected as what would help the most.

Of the creatives who answered the grant question, 86% have never been funded by one. Even more telling: 77% had never even applied. And of the 44 who named funding as a top barrier, 32 have never once applied.

Why is this? Probably the reason I scroll past grant opportunities. I’m intimidated. I don’t want to go to a mandatory one-hour meeting about how to apply for the grant. I am overwhelmed by all the questions, by the lack of resources, by the fear that someone with more experience is a lock for it. The whole thing feels like it runs on rules nobody handed me. Just like there’s a reason that running social media is a full-time job, there’s a reason that “Grant Writer” is a job title. It’s complicated. I don’t have time for more complicated things. Frankly, I don’t want to learn how to write a grant, and I definitely do not have the funds to hire a grant writer.

Make it easier. Take the preciousness out of art funding. It’s not that hard.

Moving forward

I did not see that exposure/reaching an audience would be so highly wanted. This means we need to come together as a community to develop infrastructure that gets more creatives seen.

Not only seen, but remembered. This is a long game that requires consistency.

I opened up this by saying I want a life that is not tied to a desk. It’s hard for me to sit still. I think that increased visibility, by being seen, is how we can get there. Visibility is what turns talent into paid work, and paid work is what can buy the freedom, the schedule, the room to think for ourselves, to make what matters to us the most, to be of service to a creative community.

As this is a growing database of Memphis Creatives, I am excited to see how the dataset changes over time as more creatives sign on to the platform (which is free at www.memphiscreativeindex.com).

The clarity from the data gives me some marching orders on how to help creatives live a more sustainable creative life.

A quick note on methodology

How I asked: everyone who opts into the research answers the same questions on the Index listing form: years actively creative, whether creative work is their primary income, their income sources, biggest barriers, what would most help right now, and whether they’ve applied for arts grants before. Not every person answers every question, so the numbers above are drawn from those who responded to each one. The Index is free and always open at www.memphiscreativeindex.com.

For fifteen years, that belief made him a creative-for-hire—a one-man idea factory who bounced from a kids’ show to a movie to a stack of party games now sitting on Walmart shelves, and, at one point, a talk show for an adult-entertainment company. He started on YouTube in 2010, as part of a top-10 channel with hundreds of millions of views. He’ll tell you he’s proud of the accomplishment and not especially proud of the product. That much attention, that early, has a way of burning the hunger for applause clean out of a person. He stopped making things for the reaction a long time ago.

He didn’t start out as the “art guy.” Until eighteen, he was really into basketball, until writing took its place. He studied journalism, as did I.

In June 2024, the last gig ended. A CEO decided AI could do his job instead. The rupture became the kick he’d been waiting fifteen years for. If nobody was going to hand him his dream life, he’d build it himself. Enter Dr. Lemco’s Creative Club.

His website says: “Hola, I’m Dr Lemco! I host heartfelt, hilarious, and hands-on creative experiences that feel more like hanging out than taking a class. They’re designed to help you unwind, meet cool people, and make something you’re proud of. I don’t teach you how to be an artist, I show you that you already are one.”

The first version was fully digital: newsletters, videos, interviews, all the content. He garnered roughly eighteen views. Then he hosted a single in-person workshop and, within three minutes, he knew.

A year later, he’s running his own Montreal studio two and three nights a week, with 200-plus event ideas in the Notes app, watching strangers turn into regulars, and quietly planning something bigger: a kids’ show for adults possibly (his website says “I’m the new Bob Ross, ya dig!?”) or eventually a creative retreat somewhere quiet in nature.

We came up in different cities doing what turned out to be nearly the same thing, and when we finally compared notes, it felt less like an interview and more like a mirror. Not only THAT, we are both bald AND bearded, and my favorite novel, “The Little Friend” by Donna Tartt, was behind him on his bookcase. I need a DNA test.

Here’s what Tyler learned from building a creative community.

The Conversation

You started out trying to build a fully online community. What made you switch to in-person?

“I was spinning my tires for months, so busy with production, making things for like 18 views. Then I hosted one in-person workshop, just to try it out and see how it felt. And within three minutes I was like, ‘Oh, this is it.’ This is fun, people are happy, they wanted this, and I feel good at this. Everything just clicked.”

You’ve admitted you over-prepared your early events. What did that teach you?

“When I started, I really thought I had segments planned, and games, and warm-ups and exercises. I thought I was going to host so much more. If I just put music on and serve tea and shut up, it goes so much better.”

When did you realize the community had become bigger than the art you were making?

“There have been art events at my studio where strangers are straight-up embracing and hugging and crying in each other’s arms. They’ve just met each other, and they’re so grateful to be out and socializing. And all I can think is, ‘Can you guys get back to your paintings?’”

Was building a community the plan all along?

“It’s been an unexpected byproduct that’s turned into what I think this whole project is, the foundation of it. But I had no idea, nor was that my intention.”

You’re moving toward more structure this year. How are you thinking about it?

“I keep framing it like I’m selling individual food items, when instead I need to be a restaurant that has a menu people know. They know the restaurant more than the item.”

What’s the hardest part of running all this while being an artist yourself?

“My own practice has been struggling the last few months, just because I’m so busy. I said this in therapy recently: I’m making more art than I’ve ever made in my life, and I haven’t made art in months. It’s a gift and a curse.”

Any advice for someone who wants to start their own creative community?

“There are going to be bumps in the road no matter what road you take. But people need people. Organizers who can get people together under shared circumstances, or a shared fandom, or a shared activity, whatever it is, there’s a major opportunity right now to make a life doing the thing you love.”

I needed a way to make my vision for a world of healed creatives distinctively clear, without fluff. I needed it to be sharp, declarative. It became a collective intention for all creatives to build supportive creative communities, consistently hone our craft, determine our true creative purpose, clarify why we create, and honor our bodies and mental energy through movement.

I was nervous about releasing the manifesto into the universe. The word “manifesto” carries a negative connotation. It sounds culty. Throughout history, individuals have used their beliefs as forms of abuse and manipulation for greater control over people they deem weak. But quite literally, manifesto (an Italian word) just means “a public declaration.”

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I want to publicly declare that nurturing the connection to your True Creative Self (I put it in caps because it is a part of all of us that some of us have lost touch with) is essential to healing the world. I mean it when I say that if we were all allowed, with unbridled enthusiasm, to do what we were born to do—to create, just like every other aspect of nature—many ills of society would dissolve. A bold claim that I fundamentally believe to be true.

The manifestos that shaped mine

The manifesto took months of editing and distilling. It started out much longer. Too many words, too much explaining. I edited much like I edit my poetry, picking apart, cleaving, getting to the core of an idea. I combed through artist and maker manifestos to see where my manifesto would fit into history. I started seeing my Four Codes of Creative Energy framework in other people's words.

Here are a few excerpts from my favorites.

Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969! by Mierle Laderman Ukeles (1969):

Two basic systems: Development and Maintenance. The sourball

of every revolution: after the revolution, who’s going

to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?

Development: pure individual creation; the new; change;

progress; advance; excitement; flight or fleeing.

Maintenance: keep the dust off the pure individual

creation; preserve the new; sustain the change;

protect progress; defend and prolong the advance;

renew the excitement; repeat the flight;

show your work—show it again

keep the contemporaryartmuseum groovy

keep the home fires burning

To me, this represents the Condition Code. Ukeles takes the unglamorous upkeep (the dishes, the dust, the body kept running) and names it as the art itself. Maintenance is what keeps the creative life alive.

The RIOT GRRRL Manifesto (1991):

“BECAUSE we wanna make it easier for girls to see/hear each other’s work so that we can share strategies and criticize-applaud each other…BECAUSE we are interested in creating non-heirarchical ways of being AND making music, friends, and scenes based on communication + understanding, instead of competition + good/bad categorizations….BECAUSE doing/reading/seeing/hearing cool things that validate and challenge us can help us gain the strength and sense of community that we need in order to figure out how bullshit like racism, able-bodieism, ageism, speciesism, classism, thinism, sexism, anti-semitism and heterosexism figures in our own lives…BECAUSE we see fostering and supporting girl scenes and girl artists of all kinds as integral to this process.”

This easily represents the Community Code. Non-hierarchical, anti-competition, built on lifting each other's work instead of ranking it.

Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth (1998):

Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

This is the Craft and Clarity Code mixed together. Mau says growth happens to you. You produce it through the willingness to let experience rearrange you. That's the whole posture of pressure-free experimentation: stay open, and let what you make change who you are.

This isn’t an official manifesto, but Sol LeWitt’s letter to his friend going through a creative block in 1965 is a necessary ingredient to my belief about overcoming fear:

“Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, grasping, confusing, itching, scratching, mumbling, bumbling, grumbling, humbling, stumbling, numbling, rumbling, gambling, tumbling, scumbling, scrambling, hitching, hatching, bitching, moaning, groaning, honing, boning, horse-shitting, hair-splitting, nit-picking, piss-trickling, nose sticking, ass-gouging, eyeball-poking, finger-pointing, alleyway-sneaking, long waiting, small stepping, evil-eyeing, back-scratching, searching, perching, besmirching, grinding, grinding, grinding away at yourself. Stop it and just DO!”

This one doesn't belong to a single Code, but it's the enemy of all four of them. The fear, the doubt, the endless looking over your shoulder. Pure energy drainers.

My manifesto:

Every one of us was born a creative being. When we are disconnected from this birthright, we lose touch with our True Creative Selves. Creativity is a necessity we have been taught to abandon. If each one of us was encouraged, with enthusiasm, to express our creativity, many ills of society would dissolve. The majority of our population is not granted the gift of a gentle and continuous connection to their Creative Energy. We do not have to work hard or let ourselves burn out in the name of endless productivity in order to connect to our True Creative Selves. We need a Community that supports, inspires, and elevates creative living. We need consistent practice and knowledge of our Craft to develop creative confidence. We need to learn about ourselves and limit our use of destructive technology to gain Clarity. We need to nurture the Condition of our bodies and minds through movement in order to process our emotions. When we celebrate and maintain the connection to our True Creative Selves, we heal the world.

I wanted to write this manifesto because my life’s purpose is to help creatives become fearless, to reconnect with their True Creative Selves. So often, we are limited by internal and external factors that can suffocate our shine. I want everyone to open their windows and let the breeze in.

The night I found my “why”

Let me get woo-woo here for a second: last year, it finally dawned on me what my actual purpose was when I learned about Human Design. It’s basically a spiritual self-discovery system that uses your birth details (such as your astrological Sun, Moon, and Rising signs). It’s a non-scientific (and non-prescriptive) way to figure out if you are following your path and how to use your energy. There are five types based on your birth details.

I found out I was a Projector. Projectors are known for creating systems that help people reach their full potential. They are supposed to wait for invitations to act rather than force their way into a situation. They do not go far when they hustle; they are natural resters. They become guides. They do best when someone asks for their advice instead of doling it out (something I’ve had to learn the hard way). Each Human Design Type has a significator that can indicate that they are on the “right path.” For Projectors, a sign that you’re on the right path is success.

This is where my eyes widened as I went down a rabbit hole on a stormy Saturday night, holed up in my apartment. I had not been having success trying the full-time artist route. That’s what I was striving for: burning myself out, growing resentment when I was not getting the attention I felt I was entitled to.

But what I was getting major success from was running Like Really Creative, my creative wellness platform. I had been running it for about six or seven months when I learned I was a Projector. My efforts were being noticed without me having to reach out. People were inviting me into their spaces to host events (when I was generally the one asking). I got interviewed for multiple press outlets. I was gaining traction on social media. I was getting paid. I got grants. I would get random emails with compliments and collaboration requests from people I dreamed about working with. I was succeeding.

From then on, I knew I was on the right path to developing systems that can help creatives reach their highest potential, which has always been within us since we were born as creative beings. But as I said, it’s so easy to lose that connection based on millions of factors.

The Four Codes of Creative Energy

Everything I was doing for Like Really Creative was filtered through my Four Codes of Creative Energy framework and system. I was determined to figure out how creatives, including myself, can maintain a constant connection to their creativity without burning out.

I built it over six years of trial and error, climbing out of my own burnout. I made myself into an experiment, trying out different programs, learning about habit science, pushing myself out of my comfort zone. The framework synthesizes research from four major domains: flow psychology and deliberate practice, mindfulness and metacognition research, embodied cognition and exercise science, and social creativity and arts-in-health literature.

These are the four things I practice daily that have kept me prolific:

• Community: Nurturing the biological need for shared healing and belonging; Connecting with, being supportive of, sharing with, collaborating with, and nurturing fellow creatives.

• Craft: Honing technical skill through pressure-free experimentation and learning; Practicing, learning, reading, experimenting, and playing.

• Clarity: Filtering internal and external noise to access the true creative self; Gaining self-awareness, meditating, journaling, sitting in silence, or reducing digital media

• Condition: Generating physical vitality to metabolize emotional stress; Walking, dancing, conditioning training, free movement, resting, or regular exercise

I’m obsessed with learning about artists, reading creativity research studies, interviewing artists, being around artists. I’ve been that way since I was a kid. I love artists more than I love being an artist. I still consider myself one, but I don’t have to keep banging my head against brick walls. The relief I felt was immense. I don’t have to fight my way into the art world. I can create for the love of creating.

I told myself, “Alright. Here you go. This is the rest of your life.”

Like Really Creative continued to grow as I entered the creativity coaching domain (I just booked my fifth client!). It became apparent that I needed a powerful mission statement to encapsulate everything I did, with the Four Codes of Creative Energy in mind.

Based on Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why” framework, my manifesto is my “why.” The Four Codes of Creative Energy are my “how.” And all the offerings of Like Really Creative—events, workshops, creative parties, resources for creative living—and my 1:1 creative coaching are my “what.”

Now, I have my marching orders.

Write your own

Here’s a quick practice you can do to help hone in on your purpose and write your own manifesto:

• Make a Passion List: set a time for five minutes and brain dump everything you are passionate about, everything that excites you. From hobbies to books to tasks to art styles to aesthetics to philosophies to media. Anything that endlessly fascinates you.

• Choose Your Four: Put the Passion List away for a day. Come back to it and narrow it down to four things.

• Define Your Four: Get out four sheets of paper, one for each Passion. Use the entire sheet of paper to do a brain dump about why you chose that Passion, how it’s impacted you, and why you think it’s important for the world to know.

• Edit, Edit, Edit: Turn long sentences or questions into declarative statements. If you feel like a sentence might ruffle some feathers, let the sentence ruffle some feathers.

• Share With Friends: After you think you’ve narrowed all your sentences down to their core essence, send them to friends and get their feedback.

Some of us were seen as aliens. Weirdos, outcasts, degenerates, maybe a little insane for wanting to pursue a creative life. Without knowing, we were inducted into the cult of endless productivity that mostly benefits tech companies these days. The rhetoric of “if you don’t do this a certain way, you’re a complete fuck-up” is so ingrained in this culture that every little decision feels like it has to be processed through this limiting filter. It doesn’t have to be.

We don’t have to stew in self-doubt. We deserve to have strong creative identities. We don’t have to fear being unqualified. Learning to love the mistakes you make is a form of freedom.

Researcher Jae Hwa Lee investigated this idea in a 2020 study published in “Innovations in Education and Teaching International,” in which they sought to determine the factors that build creative confidence. Lee set up a program that brought together 764 first-year-in-college students (across 25 majors) who took a 16-week creativity course. Their main question: Can creative confidence be taught?

In a pre-survey, students selected from a list of challenges, both internal and external factors. The two highest internal factors: self-doubt and fear of being judged. The two highest external factors: not enough time and inadequate funding (money).

After the 16-week creativity course—which included learning about creativity research and theory, hands-on creative exercises, a 30-day creative habit project, interviews with entrepreneurs, group discussions, and more—the students’ creative confidence increased significantly. Self-doubt reduced.

As one student said in the research paper, “I learned that we limit our own creativity by being close-minded, negative, and making assumptions. Being creative is being daring; you have to challenge the current way of looking at things and dare to break out of [the] box. This class challenged me to think outside the box and truly dig deep to come out with great results.”

But what about time and money, the highest external factors? In my experience and from learning from other artists, you don’t need a lot of either to build creative confidence. A 16-week course, which would be amazing to experience, might not be feasible for the general population.

I suffered from self-doubt and fear of being judged. I still deal with these two internal factors, but those voices are quieter. I can speak back to them, gently and firmly. I also felt like I couldn’t be fully creative without endless time or money. It’s just not true. Starting small is the key to sustainable creative confidence.

Here are some tools I’ve picked up and practiced on my own, as well as learned about from other artists, as I chugged my way through the light at the end of the creative confidence tunnel.

1. Keeping an Evidence Journal

2. Displaying your artwork where you can see it every day

3. Creating your own Curiosity Curriculum

4. Reframing your creative “failures”

Keep an Evidence Journal.

But why: collect evidence that you’re already creative.

I learned about an Evidence Journal from a participant in a Sunday Planning co-working group through neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s Ness Labs community.

Evidence journaling is a version of what cognitive behavioral therapists call a “positive data log”. Instead of trying to force confidence through affirmations, you collect proof: real accomplishments, moments of follow-through, hard things you survived, evidence that you are becoming the kind of person you want to be.

The idea is simple (but it still blew my mind): once a day, preferably as you are winding down, get out a journal and write 3-5 things you accomplished. Even the “small” stuff. This is the capital-E Evidence that you are ALIVE. You are resisting the drudgery of an anti-artist society. Nobody can tell you anything different. You have all the evidence of why you are creative, listed out, every day.

Some examples of things you could write:

• Stretched for five minutes for morning energy

• Applied for a new artist grant

• Reached out to NAME to see if they wanted to brainstorm for a new project

• Wrote for 10 minutes even though I didn’t feel like it

• Was proud of what I wrote

• Did a daily doodle in my new sketchbook

• Shared the daily doodle with NAME

• Read a few pages of INSERT BOOK THAT HAS BEEN USED AS A COASTER FOR MONTHS NOW

Write down anything and everything that contributes to YOUR creative practice. You get to design your creative practice. What are the activities that give you energy? Who are the people who inspire you? What challenges you to hone your craft?

This will be your running record of creative capability. Confidence grows in the face of challenge when you consistently become aware that you have all the abilities you need.

Display Your Artwork Where You Can See it Every Day.

But why: a daily visual reminder strengthens creative identity over time.

Nothing fills me with hope more than seeing creatives push past the fear of being seen. I’ve been able to witness this more as I’ve developed my creativity coaching practice. Between my first four clients, a common thread: creative potential that never left—has always been there—buried under the burden of fear generated by the art-devaluing system we will live in.

One of my clients (I shall call her Rebecca) came to me for creativity coaching and told me that she had a hard time believing she was an artist. She did not feel qualified to call herself that. This belief held her back from sharing her work. She is incredibly prolific and community-oriented, but she wanted to take her creative practice to the next level. She wanted more creative confidence. She was ready to be seen.

In our last session, she shared something with me that gave me full-body chills: a beautiful collage she made at the first Collage Party she ever attended, framed on the wall in front of where she works every single day. After completing a series of creative confidence-building assignments, a new belief began to take hold: her work was totally and undoubtedly deserving of display. She did not need gallery representation. The collage no longer had to collect dust.

“I haven’t framed my art in a long time,” Rebecca said. “Now I want to make postcard prints of the collage. Seeing some of my stuff displayed in front of me is like, ‘Oh yeah, I forgot I made all of this stuff.’ You asked me, ‘How do you define art?’ For a long time, I thought I was only a real artist if my art was on a wall in an expensive building. That’s not the case. I think I’m seeing art differently. I’m thinking about these things differently.”

Display your art. Look at it every day. Smile at it. You made something from nothing. Love it. Be proud of it. When you become proud of the work you created—not even necessarily the final product but the actual act of going through the creative process—you can become proud of yourself.

Create a Curiosity Curriculum.

But why: knowledge increases perceived capabilities.

I love learning. Can’t get enough of it. That wasn’t always the case. In fact, I remember telling my college friend, “I fucking hate learning,” as I spiritually limped through unfulfilling coursework. The school system was not great for me. I was a high achiever, but I detested the classes that bored me to sleep. I was so burnt out by the end of high school and practically a nub by the end of college.

Eventually, I got back to a place where curiosity, one of my natural-born traits, returned. I became voracious with my reading again. I devoured artists’ biographies, books about art movements, artist interviews, cultural essays, and memoirs. Thankfully, creativity and art are an endless fascination for me that never gets old, and there are millions of things to learn. I began to call myself a lifelong learner.

Learning is one of my main sources for maintaining creative confidence. It’s also great for idea generation. I will be reading a book about the 60s underground art movement in Brooklyn, and all of a sudden be struck by an idea for a short story, a modern take on an art piece, a new way to make something. I jot down notes in my Notes app so I don’t lose the idea, knowing I will eventually get to it. I have hundreds of creative ideas based on my learning.

I had created my own way of schooling. The benefits weren’t apparent at first, but as time went on and I sponged up everything I learned, I became more confident in my skills. I was able to connect disparate dots in interesting ways between sources. I stepped out of my comfort zone and read or listened to things I wouldn’t normally consume (like a Masterclass on graffiti art or documentary-making), and from those, I learned the most.

Learning can generate a lot of creative energy, curiosity, and confidence—especially if you get to choose what you want to dive deeper into.

Here’s one way to create your own Curiosity Curriculum. You can base it around a project you are already working on or one that needs a kickstart. The most important thing is to honor your own learning style. If you learn by doing, follow a YouTube tutorial. If you’re an auditory learner, a podcast or audiobook works wonders. If you’re a visual learner, find a documentary or a book to read.

What to do:

• Pick two pieces of media. It can be books, documentaries, audiobooks, long-form podcasts, YouTube videos, tutorials, or a combination of media. It can be about any subject that could never bore you. Ideally, one of your two media pieces relates directly to your creative project (e.g., if you’re writing a novel set in the 1960s, pick a book about that era). The other can be wildly unrelated. Follow your curiosity. Cross-pollination between unrelated fields can generate some really exciting work.

• For the rest of the month, learn from these pieces of media.

• Start a new notebook (physical or digital, whatever works best for learning) to keep track of what you learn: insights, interesting tidbits, techniques, quotes, ways you can incorporate what you learn into your creative project, and ideas that stem from the source.

This task helps you narrow down what you love to consume without being passive. The knowledge you gain can move a project along after you’ve been banging your head on the wall trying to figure out what to do next. You can find the missing link to a work of art.

Going back to that research study by Lee: when students learned about creativity, began to understand creative processes, studied examples, and learned how to develop skills, their confidence and intrinsic motivation (the most important kind of motivation for creatives) increased.

“Learning experiences in this study inspired students to become more aware of their potential and to work more creatively on a daily basis,” Lee wrote.

You just need to follow your natural-born curiosity. You don’t need permission from a teacher or a university. Become your own teacher.

Reframe Failure and Find the Good

But why: removes one of creativity’s biggest psychological blocks.

Perhaps the most heartening insight from Lee’s study was how students reported increased creative confidence after learning how to view failure differently.

While creating the survey questions, Lee dug through other research studies to find specific challenges to being creative:

“Among college students, learning to fail and taking risks were found to be the most common barriers to creativity (Ellis & Meneely, 2015; Kazerounian & Foley, 2007). However, individual creativity can be inspired within contexts: working towards a prejudice free culture which decreases one’s fear of being judged, or undertaking likely unsuccessful efforts which provide opportunities to successfully face fear of failure.”

While failure is generally deemed a negative, it’s still an action. Pieces were moved; energy flowed in and out; motion went forth.

Get out a sheet of paper and write three “failures.” Ideas or projects that you felt flopped; things that made a dent in your self-esteem. I’ll go first:

1. I created an interactive chapbook and only sold like two copies, both to my closest friends. Flop. The reframe: I learned how to create 3D digital art. I was able to stretch my experimental muscles. I combined poetry, sketches, augmented reality, and sound all into one book.

2. I created a subscriber-only membership that I was certain would fulfill my desire to work full-time for myself. I sold only 10 memberships despite relentless advertising. Loser. The reframe: Those 10 people are still active participants in my programming, and I consider most of them dear friends. I’ve gotten to know them on a more personal level. I also know not to over-promise features to a club, especially when I don’t have the capacity. I’m only one person. It takes time. It’s OK to wait.

3. Not as many people as I imagined came to the opening night of my first art exhibition. Delusional idiot. The reframe: I made an incredibly layered and emotional body of work that was so much fun to make and explore. It was a genuinely cathartic process that helped me move on from the grief of a former self. I was able to check off a goal from my Dream List. I made a new lifelong friend in the process (shoutout to Micky).

I understand the soul-suckiness of toxic positivity. You can’t completely cover up the smell of a shit-smeared shit pile with perfume. But here’s the truth: art and creativity aren’t that serious. You can find the good in not taking it so seriously in order to reduce the psychological pressure that everything has to be perfect, that it is do or die.

Love the challenge. Push past the doubt. Risk is growth.

As one student participant said in Lee’s study after taking the 16-week creativity course:

“I always doubted my creativity skills and never believed I was capable of making something great out of nothing. However, I realized that I am more creative than I thought and although I can still improve in different areas of innovation, I am on the right path to becoming the creative individual I have longed to be.”

My favorite part of the creative process—or just living creatively, in general—is that I get to choose how it goes. I do not have to follow any dogmatic rules. I had plenty of that in my childhood. Tapping into this intuitive decision-making is inherently creative. And since we are all inherently creative—every last one of us—when we are able to have an infinite connection to our creative intuition, there’s no way we can’t grow.

If you want more ideas on how to build creative confidence in the context of your own creative practice, send me an email at zack@likereallycreative.com.

Sources:

Jae Hwa Lee (2020): Building creative confidence through an interdisciplinary creativity course: Changes in creative challenges and creative personal identity, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, DOI: 10.1080/14703297.2020.1835689

Padesky, Christine A Padesky (1994): Schema Change Processes in Cognitive Therapy. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, vol. 1, no. 5, 1994, pp. 267–278.

Falling out of the pack led to a lot of solo time, fueling an active imagination. I hunted for wizard’s staffs, devoured books, and dreamed of casting spells. I wrote about short stories about fairies, loved vivid colors, absorbed dramatic television. I looked to pop stars for cues on confidence; Britney Spears became my Patron Saint of Pop Freedom.

This constant awareness of being different made me so hypervigilant about how I was perceived that I unintentionally sharpened my observational skills. Was that guy going to beat the shit out of me because of the high-pitched timbre of my voice? Better fix that. I needed to survive. Observing these minute changes in people’s behavior to avoid pain came in handy later: I was able to enrich my writing and visual art with astute details. I studied queer artists and queer literature in private. My own little secret. Queerness became something sacred.

This hiding out from my true self helped me transmute the pain into concentrated emotional work. I was not afraid to spend hours by myself, scribbling in my journal. When I discovered that I love to write poetry in middle school, I could slowly reveal my queerness through thinly veiled metaphors. When I created characters for collaborative writing forums, I could express my femininity. When I created male characters, I would make fan art for them in Photoshop, choosing incredibly hot models without their shirts.

Alongside writing and art, I got into Broadway music. I got into Lady Gaga. I had a Glee poster. I tore off the cover of Rolling Stone that featured Zac Efron’s lower stomach and folded it into a hidden box in my baby-blue colored room. I dodged questions in high school: “Are you gay?” “Why are all of your friends girls?” I emulated editorial photoshoots that I saw on Vogue.com. My queerness gave me an edge, an eye for the fantastical and surreal.

Eventually, when I finally came out of the closet at 16, my mom already knew I was gay. I told her I was bi, which, for me, was the gateway drug to being full-out homosexual, apparently. I made a big, dramatic coming-out Facebook post on National Coming Out Day in my sophomore year of college (after having two boyfriends). Attached was a link to Destiny’s Child’s “I’m A Survivor.” Nobody was shocked. I felt relieved. I got even gayer. More colors, brighter colors, writing articles for the Mississippi State University student newspaper about queer topics, same-sex marriage. I got a warm warning from my advisor: “Are you sure you want to go ahead and write about this kind of stuff?” I sure was. I was finally brave enough. Queerness wasn’t a bad thing to me. I thought it was the coolest thing that had ever happened to me.

With this sense of acceptance, my creativity expanded, and without knowing it, I was fulfilling the framework I would develop—the guiding posts for the rest of my life: The Four Codes of Creative Energy—Community, Craft, Clarity, and Condition.

I joined a show choir, which was frothing at the mouth with queer people (Community). I began learning more about queer art, exploring how my art could fit into the narrative of queer history (Craft). I went to therapy, journaled, meditated through my fears, gained self-awareness about how my queerness impacted my life (Clarity). I danced for hours and hours and hours in gay clubs in the Mid-South (Condition).

Moving to Memphis, I found even more queer people, especially in the creative scene. I learned how their queerness impacted their creative work. It’s been a burning question to me: How does queerness impact creativity?

I’ve set out to explore a little piece of this correlation through a short-form video series called Queer Coded, in which I found five queer artists who embody one of the Four Codes of Creative Energy. Of course, most of them fit all four, but I wanted to narrow the focus.

I learned that, like me, these artists see queerness as a major driver of their work and of how they live fully as themselves. Here's what they told me.

Lisa Berry

Founder of Lisa Berry Presents, a 901 queer social initiative

Embodies the Community Code

How has your queerness led to Lisa Berry Presents and community building?

Lisa Berry: Years ago, when I lived in Orlando—I left Memphis when I was 19 to do the Disney College Program. While I was there, I was one of only a few queer people. I went with my girlfriend at the time, and there were no other queer events happening around Disney, even though in June Disney had their Gay Days back then.

So I went to Gay Days, and I was like, “I want to actually have conversations with other queer people.” So at 23, I believe, I started Blue Star Events—which actually caused a little mix-up for my first event. I was specifically looking to cater toward the Black community, because everyone around me in Orlando was either white or Latinx, and I was like, “Are there no Black queer people in Orlando?”

So I did the event, but there was also an event coordinator called Baby Blue Star Events. I posted my event on Craigslist, and it brought out so many different people. I hosted it with the support of The Center, the LGBTQ center in Orlando. And with that confusion, it brought out a mixed crowd for my event, because Baby Blue Star is actually a white, masculine-presenting woman.

So I had an entire mixed crowd at my first event, which was speed dating. So it kind of started there. And when I moved back to Memphis, it came right back up for me. I didn’t have the community I’d established while I was in Orlando, and I was like, I need that. That was something I truly—you know, an environment I thrived in. So I had the brunch, and now we’re Lisa Berry Presents.

And what have you noticed about the queer community in Memphis? What are some things it’s brought out in you as a queer person?

Lisa Berry: Collaboration. I’ve always been very independent—I’m a middle child, I did a lot of things on my own. So when I came out with Lisa Berry Presents, I realized this wasn’t just something I wanted; it appears the city was craving it too. There were so many people willing to help, so many people who wanted to be a part of it, who loved what I was doing. And now I get to collaborate across so many different avenues—from DJ parties to art parties to floral parties, so many different collaborations. It brought friends in from so many different corners of Memphis. I love it.

Kai Ross

Conceptual photographer

Embodies the Craft Code

How does your queerness impact your creative craft?

Kai Ross: I started getting into photography when I was in Los Angeles. I went to film school first, and I discovered that I do not like film at all, whatsoever. So I started doing conceptual photography. But because I really loved screenwriting, I would continue to write these stories, and I would just pull my visuals from that. And I think one of the first stories I did was a little short called “Purple Guns,” and it was a very, very queer film.

And that’s when I discovered that I had a calling, like a duty to make sure I had queer representation in my art.

The project I’m working on right now is a perfect example of that. It’s a visual mixtape, and it’s a study on perception. It’s about the way that love, grief, and identity affect the way I see and create art.

And so for me—I went through my first long-term queer relationship, and during that process I was struggling with making art. It went from being for her, to about her, to for her, to about her.

I guess I kind of realized that the way I feel in love—or even in my grieving process from that relationship—heavily affects the way I want to showcase their story to the world. Because I don’t want to hurt anyone, but at the same time, I want to tell my story. But then it’s like, I feel so differently day to day. Like, one day I’m in love with you, one day I hate you. It’s a rough process to go through. That’s what I have to make my art about. I’ve been so busy trying to pinpoint one thing, or one way I feel, when I really should study the motions of those feelings, and why it changes.

But yeah—queerness in art. We go through those love and relationship things so heavily, so deeply, to where it really has no choice but to penetrate our art.

Mia Saine

Illustrator, graphic designer, creative director

Embodies Community and Craft Code

So how does your craft impact your queerness and vice versa? How do they work together?

Mia Saine: My queerness reflects in my craft, basically through representation. I’m very mindful of being honest about the people I see on a day-to-day basis, who I believe really represent what love is. And so for me, I just really love not subscribing to the binary, or to the very traditional, conservative—whatever you want to call it—illustrations and protocols. Like, I’m really exploring different ways to represent this amount of love that’s limitless.

So sometimes, especially working with commercial and corporate people, they want you to use these go-to style skin tones and ways of representation. And I’m just mindful, like, hey—how can we expand this so no one feels left out? So this includes not just the regular queer folks you may see. You might deal with people who are missing limbs, who need extra accessories so they’re able to live and be great. You have certain people who have conditions that are invisible, and some people who have them that are visible.

How do queer people in Memphis inspire your creative process?

Mia Saine: Oh, the queers in Memphis tremendously influence my artistry. Pretty much, I’ve been learning how to love myself way more, in a healthy way. And it doesn’t have to be with substances, not with having to over-engage with people—just understanding that, hey, this person is here for me when I’m not my best, and this person is here for me when I am at my best. And it’s pretty much allowing me to feel the grief of who I was and becoming who I’m going to be.

And that doesn’t look the same at all. I’m telling you—I had green hair at one point, and what the hell was that? I was so mad at that. I mean, I thought it was so cool, anyway. But I’m really happy that I’m just able to be myself.

In my 30s, I’ve been able to embrace and embody my fluidity and my love in a way I had a hard time with in my 20s and my teens. So this is kind of like a—I don’t know, it’s like a transitioning phase for me right now. So I’m very thankful for my community. It’s been good.

Shay Hudson

Licensed Master Social Worker and certified nature & forest therapy guide

Embodies Clarity Code

How does your queerness impact your clarity?

Shay Hudson: My attachments with nature kind of started early on, when I realized that there are parts of myself that may not be acceptable to the people in my life. But I realized I could go be with trees, and I could sit with the flowers, and I could just have a moment with nature and the beings around me. And I felt fully accepted.

Acceptance is the root of clarity. For me, I think once I was able to accept who I was, then I was able to be really clear about who I was. And then I felt just so much peace around that for me.

Carmen Monét

Singer, writer, content creator

Embodies the Condition Code

How does your queerness affect how you view your body, how you move your body? How do they impact each other?

Carmen Monét: Honestly, I feel like my queerness and my fitness really just go hand in hand with everything. I’m not going to lie to you, because my queerness really taught me how to be the fullest version of myself. It is my queerness that inspires me to want to figure out who I am in any and all capacities. So even when I think about my queerness and how it’s affected my body, I’ve only wanted to show more, only wanted to celebrate more—because that’s what I associate queerness with: pride. Actually finding pride not just in your sexuality, but in who you are. So I would say they go hand in hand.

I feel like my queerness walks alongside me in this life—and really, so does my creativity. I feel like I’m the type of person to see life in colors, whether they’re gloomy or vibrant or muggy. Like, whatever that color is, I see the color, I honor the color. But then I also try to bring joy to that space. I feel like queerness has gifted me the opportunity to see life in a completely different capacity, because it shows me that nothing—nothing—is what it has to be according to anybody else besides me. And life is the same way.

Like, life is full of colors because I say so. Life can be beautiful because I see the beauty in every single thing. And I think queerness is beautiful, and queerness allows you to see the beauty in every single thing.

At the core, all five artists told a similar story of queerness: they transformed feelings of isolation, intensity, shame, and rejection into a vision and a colorful way of life. Strange became a thing of beauty. They built communities when there wasn’t one to accept them. They picked apart strange, complex feelings and poured them out with the creative process. They communed with nature, with stillness, and got clear on who they were. They became proud to move in their bodies.

Acceptance and full-bodied expression of queerness drives creative energy. It’s that aliveness that was not allowed to be exposed.

Over time, it thickened, layered, formed into an energetic force. It had no choice but to burst forth.

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The fantasy started in a Books-A-Million in Tupelo. I strayed from the young adult fiction shelves and entered the one measly art aisle, where I saw a baby-blue book cover with the title POPISM in a bold, white font. Behind, a limp-wristed Andy Warhol and his main muse, Edie Sedgwick.

I remember my heart racing as I reached for the book (a memoir by Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett), looking over my shoulder, making sure nobody realized the stomach-plummeting insight I had: there’s something weird about this man. He looks…gay. And I’m reaching for this gay book. I’m definitely going to Hell.

But the severe promise of burning for eternity did not stop me from opening the gay pages of this gay book and discovering my North Star for years to come. The life of Andy Warhol, the surrounding underground scene, the drugged-up drag queens, the unbridled queer desire transformed into experimental art, a self-made Momma’s boy artist pining to be accepted by the mainstream. Colors, colors, so many colors. I escaped into them.

I latched onto this stream of gritty glamour images as I learned about Pop Art, the beatniks, and the starving artists of the 1950s and 1960s in poor neighborhoods in New York. I made it my entire personality, as one does when they feel misunderstood in a place intent on misunderstanding you. It was a subconscious rebellion that said, “I know about this special place in history that you can’t possibly know about. I’m going to show you just how different I am,” while screaming that I was gay without actually saying it.

The happening and exploding inevitable

The more I learned about Andy Warhol, the more I came across one of his lesser-known projects: The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, a simmering multimedia spectacle that combined film projections, strobe lights, performance art, and a marketing strategy devised for The Velvet Underground and Nico (which Andy Warhol creatively directed). The Plastic Inevitable mirrored the avant-garde “Happenings” of the late 1950s and early 1960s. A throughline between them both: sensory overload and the collaboration of artists creating seemingly unconnected pieces.

My favorite glimpse into a Happening comes from an article by Calvin Tomkins in The New Yorker on the artist Robert Rauschenberg (who is basically the Grandfather of Pop Art). Tomkins writes about the friendship and collaboration between Rauschenberg and the prolific (and maniacal) avant-garde sculptor Jean Tinguely:

“[Robert Rauschenberg and Jean Tinguely] liked the idea of collaboration between artists, and that spring they joined forces with several other avant-garde talents to put on a rather bizarre performance in the little theatre that is part of the American Embassy. This spectacle presented simultaneously a motorized Tinguely sculpture that went back and forth across the stage doing a strip tease; a performance, in and around the piano, of John Cage’s ‘Variation II’ by the American pianist David Tudor; a picture-shoot by Niki de Saint-Phalle, Tinguely’s present wife, who creates her works by firing a .22 rifle at papier-mâché constructions in which plastic bags of paint are embedded; and the onstage creation of a painting by Rauschenberg, whose brushstrokes, hammer blows, and other sound effects were amplified by contact microphones attached to the canvas. (Only the back of the painting was visible to the audience, which expected to see the finished work at the end but was denied that pleasure).”

Pure chaotic overload. Where do your eyes look when a sculpture is stripping to the sound of rifle shots while someone is painting something you can’t see? Everywhere.

I think that’s what intrigued me so much about these collaborations from Happenings and Warhol’s Plastic Inevitable—they were doing something never done before, creating new worlds, adding lexicons unheard of before. I desperately wanted to be part of it, to add my own vocabulary, to create something never done before. That’s always my North Star, my life’s work.

The common phrase you hear about art: “Nothing is original.” But I just don’t believe that. Call me naive. It might take me my whole life to figure it out, but why give up on creating a new language?

​

The spirit of the avant-garde is alive in Memphis

Nearly two years ago, I attended my first multimedia spectacle at the Pink Palace Planetarium in Memphis. It was a Cloudland Canyons (a band made up of Thomas Corbin, Kip Uhlhorn, and Graham Burks at the time) show—a mixture of swelling ambient drones with melodic background vocalizations, synced to abstract, manipulated imagery projected into the “sky” of the planetarium. I was enthralled. I was fully living in the fantasy that had stayed with me for so long as I nosed my way into my artistic exploration. Except I wasn’t 14 and shaking in Books-A-Million at the thought of being discovered as gay because I picked up a book about Andy Warhol. I was 31, walking up to Thomas Corbin, an artist I admired, to introduce myself and tell him that what I had just witnessed was so fucking cool.

Since then—maybe because I’m just hyperfixated on it and my mind seeks it out—I’ve noticed an upward trend in the use of projections and analog manipulation as visual candy for live performances in Memphis because of collaborative happenstances that just work. I witnessed a very Exploding Plastic Inevitable moment at Club Optic, which combined the tech-punk stylings of Optic Sink, two DJ sets, and the surreal, swirling imagery crafted and projected by Micky Thordarson of Low Budget Film Productions—all mashed together in a quasi-abandoned warehouse in downtown Memphis. The multimedia experience seeped into my senses. The memory still sticks with me as multisensory experiences often do.

Leading the charge is Infinity Stairs, the prolific duo of Graham Burks and Thomas Corbin. They have projection-mapped the Overton Park Shell for GonerFest and an Arc of Quasar concert, the Memphis Botanic Garden for a trippy winter wonderland outdoor installation, a mind-warping sensory dreamscape using a giant orb for a Marcella Simien and Talibah Safiya performance at Crosstown Theater, a drag show called Planet Luminarus at Off the Walls Arts, and a stable-made-stage at Downing Hollow Farm for Big Eyes Festival.

Their talents have secured them spots as consulting artists for BVO (the brainchild of multimedia artist Christoper Reyes), which I can say with certainty, is the future of Memphis tourism.

A brief history of infinity

As I discovered in my teens, I’m wildly fascinated by how scenes start. Artists inspiring artists, what moving parts clicked together, the context in which a project starts in the brain and gains traction in the physical.

I asked Graham Burks, founder of Infinity Stairs, to give me a brief history of how and why he started Infinity Stairs. The project began in 2023 as a music project that has snowballed into a massive multimedia operation focused on visual manipulations and projection mapping of physical environments.

“As a musician, I tend to compartmentalize my projects under different band names. For a long time, Infinity Stairs was where I filed a lot of my electronic music. I used to perform improvisational live looping electronic shows under the Infinity Stairs moniker. Many of those electronic jams morphed into song-songs with lyrics, and I repurposed a lot of those pieces for my psych-rock project Loose Opinions.

While I have always dabbled with video production, Christopher Reyes, founder of BVO, and I made a music video for Loose Opinions. Working with Chris opened my eyes to projection mapping and LED pixel mapping.

By 2023, I was playing in Cloudland Canyon, and we played Milwaukee Psych Fest. An artist was doing a classic oil-and-water liquid light show while we performed, but he was capturing his real-world art with a digital camera and further manipulating it on a computer. This collision of analog and digital techniques blew my mind.

Eric Friedl from Goner Records had loaned me an old GonerTV vintage video mixer, and I had started building a setup that used old surveillance cams, retro CRT TVs, and old video mixers to make art and project it in my music room.

In late 2023, Goner asked me to make some bumpers for the GonerFest live stream. Around this time, Corbin was aware of what I was up to, and asked me to perform live visuals for his band General Labor at Black Lodge Video, a former music venue that had a concert-stage-sized video projection wall.

That November 2023 show was the first official Infinity Stair projection show and, from the beginning, was a collaboration between Corbin and me. We continued to collab on projects such as a music video for Marcella Simien, a 360-degree planetarium show with Cloudland Canyon, and immersive video projections for a dance party at DKDC with Bodywerk, before it became obviously apparent that Infinity Stairs is very similar to playing in a two-piece band, and we made it official.”

As he delved further into the Memphis video art scene, he noticed that larger cities have thriving scenes with live visuals, glitch art, and modular video synths.

He felt Memphis lacked that kind of scene.

“Former Memphian Brendan Spengler has been making modular video synth art for years, and BVO’s [Christopher] Reyes had been on the forefront of projection mapping, but there was no scene,” Graham said. “As Infinity Stairs has been performing live, I noticed other video artists coming out of the woodwork. I met a new friend Carter, also known as Carry Ripple, who is very much on the same page as Infinity Stairs, using old video mixers and CRT TVs to make his art.”

They formed a video art collective, Memphis Chroma Collective, and started a Discord Channel. Now, they are around 30 artists strong.

“If you want a scene, sometimes you just have to build it,” he said.

I’ve seen the duo in action at several events (including the one I booked them for at the Like Really Creative Collage Coterie, where they created live projection collages). Graham, often smiling, moves at lightning speed to make the most minute adjustments. Corbin is twisting knobs with a furrowed brow, deep in a flow-state of concentration.

I remember getting lightly drenched during the storm at Big Eyes Festival in the middle of Olivehill, Tennessee, as they, with assistance from Carter Earheart-Brown (the artist known as Carry Ripple), scrambled to cover their collage of equipment. The rain did not stop them from turning the dark trees at the edge of the forest into new, multicolored entities to behold.

You can tell they are aiming for perfection in how they map areas, even as they use imperfect visuals often generated by manipulated randomness.

What the audience experiences with Infinity Stairs visuals: a dreamworld in reality. Colors that shift without notice, flickering edges that turn into smoothed-over gradients, layers and layers of visual ephemera that turn from neon green to purple in an instant, distorting footage into amorphous shapes that add a fourth dimension to the music or performance happening at the same time.

​

Living in a dream world

Last week, I dipped into a deeper dreamworld that added another layer of unreality I hadn’t experienced before: a multimedia show produced by Zach Mitchell—a musician and founder of tape label Machine Duplication Recordings—and his wife Isabelle, the Coordinator of Community Life at First Congregational Church (First Congo).

Mitchell curated a brilliant bill inspired by ambient acts and visuals he saw at a Cowboy Sadness show where light artists mapped a church’s architecture and stained glass windows: Nashville’s Luke Schneider, who creates meditative soundscapes with a pedal steel guitar; Dream Journal, a “hypnagogic poetry” duo; and fosterfalls, a dream folk artist who live layers harmonies on a looper while playing classical guitar. All of these acts were tied together with visuals by Infinity Stairs, who projection-mapped the sanctuary at First Congo.

“With all three artists, this cool undercurrent of dreams popped up,” Mitchell said. “Luke’s last album, a collaboration with Jamie Lidell, is called ‘A Companion For the Spaces Between Dreams.’ Fosterfalls is pretty readibly identifiable as ‘dreamfolk,’ and Dream Journal involves Rachel [Grant] reading directly from a literal dream journal. I think the visuals enhanced that.”

Dream Journal blew me away and was just the right amount of weird and surreal to take me out of reality. Infinity Stairs’s labyrinth of lines swirled in front and behind the duo as Robby Grant (who is also the Executive Director of WYXR) played echoing riffs while Rachel Grant read poetic dream journal entries. The performance culminated in a finale of Rachel shouting, “I can’t swim! They won’t help me!” I was moved to tears as I tiptoed in and out of reality—the feeling of being in my body, reliving subconscious memories as I was placed into an entirely different atmosphere of color and sound.

When fosterfalls performed, an alternate reality opened before me. It was the ethereality of the vocals and the lyrical sharpness that felt like I was in the presence of an otherworldly bard. The day outside the sanctuary had turned into night by that point, and the colors from the projected visuals were brighter, contrasted. A smiling woman handed me a slip of paper. On the front, a stamped smiley face; on the back, an affirmation that reads: “I give myself the kindness I need.” Then, Luke Schneider began plucking ambient undulations of sound. I was fully immersed, awake but not awake, focused, stimulated, thoughtful and thoughtless.

“Good art deserves good ideas.”

Throughout the night, as Mitchell introduced the next performer, he mentioned a few times that he was surprised at the turnout. I asked him why.

“We were in completely uncharted territory for this. Experimental show turnout is generally hit-or-miss in Memphis. More miss than hit, and I didn’t know if the aesthetic challenge of asking ‘The Art Crowd’ to come to a church—even one as lefty as First Congo—would hinder turnout. I was wrong. It actually enhanced it, especially because the church crowd really showed up for it.”

As a musician, he’s noticed that Memphis can be “an extremely weird city to book in.” An audience is never guaranteed, even with back-breaking labor and overwhelming enthusiasm for what you believe will sell out.

“I think intention, planning, and ingenuity go a long way towards bridging that gap,” Mitchell said. “People respond when you give them something to respond to. Good art deserves good ideas.”

Before this culminating event, Mitchell played a part in Infinity Stair’s first gig, where he filmed close-ups of General Labor playing on his VHS camcorder so Graham could integrate the footage into his visuals with his “battle station rig” at Black Lodge.

Along with his VHS releases, Infinity Stairs’ big multimedia show, and live visuals from Carry Ripple and Low Budget Film Productions, Mitchell has seen a “concerted effort within the last few years to present bands in a more interesting way.”

“Putting art in different contexts—different venues, adding visuals, strange lineups—works like a sort of ketamine therapy for audiences to find new pathways to appreciating new things. It gets your neurons firing in different ways.”

I’m always looking for ways to fire my neurons in different ways. My creative life thrives on novelty. In this burgeoning multimedia landscape, I find myself floating between past and present, wondering about the future of spectacles.

The past: images from all my research about the multimedia scene in the mid-1960s, pining to be part of something so new. The present: seeing colors intertwine with light, music, poetry, performance—strangeness—and knowing I’ve been on the right path this entire time as I doggedly followed my North Star. The future: not knowing and loving the uncertainty of the next evolution of art.

Learning and experiencing (and time traveling in and out of) this experimental scenehas all felt very queer to me: the coexisting identities, the multitudes of textures, colors overlapping faces, the expression of the ineffable; something is exposed where you aren’t sure where to look at first, but when you finally see it, you can settle into a better world where you can begin to express the words of your new language.

A new arts-in-health study shows that participating in the arts, whether by creating art or supporting it, can literally change your DNA and slow the aging process.

Daisy Fancourt—the queen of arts-in-health research and author of The Art Cure (which I just started reading)—partnered with researchers from University College London who looked at survey and blood test results from 3,556 adults in the UK.

Those who engaged in a diverse set of art creation or art observing—from “singing, painting, photographing, crafting; attending art exhibitions and events; visiting heritage sites such as historic parks, historic buildings, monuments; and other cultural activities including going to museums, libraries or archives”—saw their aging slow down by four percent compared to those who barely engaged with the arts.

“These results demonstrate the health impact of the arts at a biological level,” Fancourt told The Times in an interview. “They provide evidence for arts and cultural engagement to be recognized as a health-promoting behavior in a similar way to exercise.”

She continued by saying that having a diverse recipe of arts engagement helps “physical, cognitive, emotional, or social stimulation.”

I was able to hear Fancourt speak on a virtual panel hosted by SocialRx. She said that evidence from many studies shows that day-to-day arts engagement, such as creating art as a hobby, can improve well-being and reduce the risk of depression, in addition to physical health conditions. She said this before this new big study came out.

Those of us who participate in the arts regularly know this to be true. It’s like…duh. It’s one of the many reasons I started Like Really Creative. Creative health is wealth.

But those who do not see art as valuable in a commodified sense, who view artists as toddlers in human bodies just fucking off and finger painting, could be swayed as more and more studies like the one above continue to be properly funded and produce quantifiable results.

Once they can see—or once we can convince them—that art makes people healthier, more productive, and better for their bottom line, we just might see an influx of support for arts programming.

If that’s what it takes for the proliferation of more creativity to be encouraged with enthusiasm, so be it.

As Fancourt said in the panel I attended, “If people knew about the benefits of art and put it in a drug, we’d be clamoring to get our hands on it. But we devalue art.”

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Social prescribing is really hot right now

The best kind of arts engagement is community arts engagement. Researchers and doctors in the UK have known this since the 90s as they began a movement called “social prescribing,” which is just now making waves in the United States.

According to SocialRx, a leader in arts-in-health advocacy, social prescribing is “a means of enabling health professionals and other trusted individuals to ‘prescribe’ community-based social interventions as supplements to traditional clinical and pharmaceutical care.”

Instead of focusing solely on biological and psychological health—which have long been the main focus—social prescribing considers social health the third pillar of “whole person health.”

SocialRx teams up with community partners and doctors for healthcare-grade, social-prescribed activities for patients to “enhance a patient’s health or address a health need.”

I signed up Like Really Creative as a SocialRx community partner (even though there is no social prescribing movement happening in Tennessee YET) and learned how social prescribing works through a training orientation.

Basically:

1. A prescribing partner fills out a referral form on the patient’s behalf.

2. A Care Navigator from SocialRx will then connect a patient to an arts or community program (even buying them tickets or arranging transportation).

3. The patient participates in community engagement, “specifically chosen for its therapeutic benefits and the member’s personal preferences.”

4. The Care Navigator checks the patient’s progress using clinically validated scales.

5. Once a year of community participation is up, patients can visit their provider for a “refill” of social activities.

The clinically validated scales to measure well-being

I was curious about how providers and Care Navigators monitored well-being. How can you tell if arts community events are actually working on a clinical level?

I raised my digital hand, asked, and found out they use three scales: the UCLA Loneliness Scale Version 3, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and the World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index.

The UCLA Loneliness Scale, developed in 1978, is a 20-item measure of subjective feelings of loneliness and social isolation. Some of the statements used in the Scale: “How often do you feel that you lack companionship?; How often do you feel that there is no one you can turn to?” And the most devastating, in my opinion, “How often do you feel that people are around you but not with you?” Then, for each statement, you have four options to choose from—Never, Rarely, Sometimes, and Often.

The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 can measure the severity of depression, while the WHO-5 Well-Being Index measures general mental well-being and includes five statements that “relate to the past two weeks.”

The five questions: “I have felt cheerful and in good spirits; I have felt calm and relaxed; I have felt active and vigorous; I woke up feeling fresh and rested; My daily life has been filled with things that interest me.” You then rate the answers to your statement on a 6-point scale from All the Time to At no Time.

You might not feel better immediately after attending one arts community engagement, but over time, you might see results.

I challenge everyone to attend arts events, but before you do so, take the three scales above. Check back in three months by taking the scales again.

You just might feel more connected and refreshed, with fewer self-critical thoughts, all while slowing your aging process. It’s science.

And then we can somehow get government officials to engage more with the arts and improve their well-being, so they will stop fucking with us and start fucking with watercoloring.

Sources:

https://academic.oup.com/innovateage/article/10/6/igag038/8669801?login=false

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/enjoying-the-arts-has-same-effect-on-ageing-as-a-weekly-workout-h2psl0ww8?fbclid=IwY2xjawR3_gRleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFJUTJhVTgxdTFSYU01bENic3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHjgpFjnr93iwKvDyFd_4j6V4KPCiXrKSsPWvivWtaA4YWUl8zfsZYZyyt7A1_aem_SYS09mYEsJLhCzSgo3E_dA

https://backend.fetzer.org/sites/default/files/images/stories/pdf/selfmeasures/Self_Measures_for_Love_and_Compassion_Research_LONELINESS_AND_INTERPERSONAL_PROBLEMS.pdf

https://www.socialrx.com/

https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/WHO-UCN-MSD-MHE-2024.01

https://www.mdcalc.com/calc/1725/phq9-patient-health-questionnaire9

https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/44526-daisy-fancourt

https://www.socialprescribingusa.com/building-the-future-of-social-prescribing-in-the-united-states

“The university, Fashion Institute of Tennessee, was the first fashion school built in the state after a resurgence of designers, fashion critics, and influencers migrated to Memphis in the late 2020s to launch their brands with less taxation. Columnists called this exodus from the North, ‘the age of a Southern Renaissance, when burnt out artists and thinkers have found comfort in the slower pace of life.’ The resurgence solidified the city as an art capital of the New South, spurring fresh and clean neighborhoods, flourishing restaurant culture, and the city’s first skyscrapers.”

Some of my visions have come partly true: Memphis is definitely in the middle of a creative renaissance. Memphis Fashion Week is growing each year, gradually putting the city on the map for burgeoning fashion designers. I don’t hear any murmurs of a new fashion school, but I would not be surprised. There are tons of art exhibitions opening every weekend. Art lovers are attending art crawls in the thousands. Art galleries are becoming more welcoming and acting as meeting grounds for the community. Urban Art Commission is filling the city with outdoor art. The new Metal Museum is nearly finished with construction. A brand new art school, Shapeshifter Art School and Gallery, opened this year. Six million dollars was just awarded to the Brooks Museum by the city for its new location in downtown Memphis. The city just created its first Director of Cultural and Creative Economy role. Creative communities are popping up like crazy as more people spend less time on screens and do more with their hands.

One thing I did not foresee in my brief backstory: a thundering surge of DJs and a packed-out dance scene with DJ sets that are hard to keep up with. Again, Memphis is in the middle of a creative renaissance. And DJs are at the center. Hotspots like Bar DKDC and Cameo are bursting at the seams with people wanting to dance. The Morning After Club, a day dance party, just took over Beale Street. The music curated by DJs is a connector for underground artists. It’s tough to open an event listing and not see a DJ on there.

I see DJs as the new rock stars. An air of star quality surrounds them as they proliferate a culture of movement and nighttime fashionability. They draw in youthful crowds (also known as the future of Memphis) to dance, sweat, connect, meet new lovers, mingle with artists, to escape a world that feels like it is fastly corroding. DJs keep the bleakness at bay by getting people into their bodies and into the present moment.

We all desperately need to be in the present moment more often.

From the mouth of DJs

Last year, through the Like Really Creative Show, I interviewed three DJs—Rosamii, Strooly, and DJ DanceAlone—because I recognize just how special DJs are as artists, curators, and scene builders.

When I asked about what brought her to DJing, Rosamii had this to say: “So DJing really brought me love for electronic and house, which I always knew I really liked. It kind of helped me fall in love with music again and finding new genres, because it was kind of dying. Everything is so oversaturated that it’s hard to find good new music and new artists and stay consistent with them. But I think DJing helped me a lot with that.”

Rosamii hit on something that’s becoming widespread—a return to the reliance on finding new music, art, or fashion through curators in an oversaturated market. Tastemaking is back, and since music is arguably the most popular art form, DJs give us clarity as we wade through the muck of way too much information.

For Strooly, DJing helped him move through anxiety: “I’m just a nervous person. Which is probably why I started DJing. I didn’t do this on purpose, but I think it’s a realization of like wanting to be understood, wanting to be able to be comfortable and have a great time with a lot of people, and not be shut in. So, DJing is just this kind of weird, controlled way to get to do that.”

DJ DanceAlone, a DJ and producer represented by Future-Everything (co-run by Strooly), emphasizes Black culture in his music curation and creation: “Black techno matters for a sense of representation of the people or the community that spawned the genre in the first place. The world sort of fell in love with techno, but they kind of didn’t necessarily fall in love with the people, the community that it comes from. So it is a very big deal that people hear and people see that that community still exists and is still very much creating. That is why it matters to me specifically.”

We must never forget. DJs are at the center of the creative scene, but Black DJs are the center of the center.

And who is at the center of the center of the center? Black women and Black queer people.

You should check out this article by another brilliant Memphis DJ, DJ Brilli, about how Black DJs just might be conjurers:

thelolanychole’s Substack

Your Local Black DJ Might be a Conjurer

My sub-stack is serving as post where I dump all of the thoughts that my friends and I have on a regular basis…

Read more

4 months ago · 4 likes · The Brillianaire

Exorcising demons on the dance floor

I went dancing last weekend at a party called MESH:FOCUS, hosted by the prolific DJ and producer Qemist, who was joined by superstar DJ Nico and icon/scene builder Strooly. The mix of the three DJs generated an eclectic sonic riot, with dancers showing out, screaming in ecstasy, clacking fans, and shouting along to the music.

For me, I felt like I exorcised a demon that had been weighing my shoulders down. I’ve been crawling around in my head lately, not for any particular reason, but because I haven’t been moving as much lately. I went with my friend Meghan, who is accustomed to attending electronic dance festivals with stacked lineups of DJs. She is the perfect dance partner: when the bass or rhythm in a song was particularly, how do you say, stanky, we would meet eyes and dance even harder. Our eyebrows would raise at a surprise twist in a melody. As a connoisseur of electronic music with DJ skills under her belt, the dance party inspired her to finally invest in high-quality DJ decks.

The music, the talent, the scene—it was all just too good. I felt energized and inspired. I was exercising, after all. Exercising—movement, in general—is a major component in generating creative energy. Without it, I feel lifeless and cranky. I’m sober, but I felt high leaving Bar DKDC, after dancing non-stop from 8:00 PM to 1:00 AM. I felt like College Zack again, who always started the party by dancing on a dead dance floor if he had to.

The next day, my neck was sore from swiveling my bald head around, imagining I was whipping a long mane of flowing hair in circles. My knees ached. Despite the signs of me getting slightly older, the rest of the weekend floated by with a heavenly aura. I painted with friends. I read. I napped. My nervous system was nonplussed.

What an honor it is to witness the energy of the Memphis dance scene, facilitated by DJs’ hard work and curatorial precision, backed by deep immersion in the history of music. What an honor it is to dance away the fears of living, to dance in the middle of a renaissance.

The universe keeps directing me towards this idea. The other day, I went on a walk with a friend in Overton Park. Rituals came up—things we do to honor the present moment and make living more sacred.

“I do rituals every now and again,” he said.

My curiosity reared its seven heads. “What do you do?”

“I don’t really tell anyone,” he said. “I like to keep it to myself. Makes it more sacred.”

I was actually kind of stunned. Shocked. If anybody had asked me that question, I would have given them a step-by-step on why I did those rituals, how they’ve helped soothe my vagus nerve, the exact kind of incense I use (frankincense), and a random fact about some ancient ritual I learned about during a rabbit hole session.

There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but as someone who tends to seek external validation in order to feel more secure in myself, adding a little mystery into my life wouldn’t hurt. When I’m excited about a project, I will share every step of the process with my close circle, waiting for their response with bated breath. By the time they’ve responded, I will have already sent them an updated draft. “Actually, look at/listen/read this version instead.”

The next day, at lunch with a different friend, I was sharing this struggle with not being able to contain my excitement, with falling into the vortex of validation addiction (it’s a real thing), and my worries that I was exhausting my friends by always wanting their feedback.

He listened. He paused. He said, “Why don’t you do something where you don’t tell anybody? Just something for yourself? You don’t even have to post it.”

Another sign of doing something without broadcasting it to the world to feed an extrinsic need. I can do something for the peace of it, for the meditative silence of just making, to learn how to be OK with not having feedback.

I told my friend I would accept his challenge.

“What kind of thing do you think you’ll do?”

“I’m not telling.”

In this week’s Creative Wellness Research Log Entry, I will talk about:

• Fighting property destruction with the gift of community art

• Getting out of your mind with intuitive play (and childlike silliness)

• Making art for intense awareness instead of entertainment

• Tearing your heart out on the dancefloor with samä

Fighting property destruction with the gift of community art

Code: COMMUNITY

Currently reading — “The Gift” by Lewis Hyde

You can make a community out of anything, even an abandoned salami factory in Rome.

That’s what Italian anthropologist Giorgio de Finis did, as told by Lewis Hyde in his book “The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World.” When Giorgio came across this abandoned salami factory, he saw potential. He didn’t want the beauty of the building to go to waste, so he created the Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove di Metropoliz. Translation: the Museum of the Other and the Elsewhere.

In an ingenious move to block the Italian government from demolishing the building, Giorgia invited over 300 artists to donate their time to paint murals, create installations, and “create a protective skin, a shield” around the factory.

This act of community giving blocked developers from taking over the building.

Hyde says:

Gifts don’t just create a community, they protect one…At the MAAM, for seven years and counting, the system-jamming presence of art as gift has successfully served as what the inhabitants call a ‘barricade of art.’

Community art is resistance.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Find a place, an object, or something overlooked in your daily life. Gather some friends. Have each friend add a creative element to that place/object. It could be a collage, a taped poem, anything. How does it change the space/object?

Getting out of your mind with intuitive play (and childlike silliness)

Code: CRAFT

Currently facilitating — OUT OF YOUR MIND, An Intuitive Play Workshop with Alex Russell

Last week, I got to witness some intense giggling, enthusiastic cheering, and people truly stepping out of their comfort zones.

It was from an intuitive play workshop that I facilitated called OUT OF OUR MIND, led by comedian and improv coach Alex Russell (who is genuinely one of the funniest people I’ve ever met).

As a seasoned improv performer, Alex has noticed, in himself and others, how much improv helps people push past fear of being perceived. Fear can take you out of the present moment and keep you stuck in your head.

When you are allowed—with enthusiasm—to fail, say something that you think others will judge you for, move in a strange way that causes your face to turn beet-red (me), fear becomes the tail end of an echoing voice in your head.

Alex led participants through a series of games: the Human Orchestra, where one-by-one and with closed eyes, participants made a rhythmic sound to make an acapella orchestra; Living Statue, where players made poses in groups of three before the audience named the living piece; Emotion Art, where players got in groups of three and made marks, one at a time, based around an emotion (fear, disinterest, joy); and One Word Story, where groups of four told a story, one word at a time.

It also helped that we passed out bright yellow pom-poms so everyone could cheer on the fearless decisions they made throughout the night.

Creative Experiment to Try:

This week, dare to fail at something you think you’d be really bad at. Schedule an hour and fail hard.

Making art for intense awareness instead of entertainment

Code: CLARITY

Currently reading — “The Lives of Artists, Volume One” by Calvin Tomkins

I’m learning about John Cage, experimental composer and all-around genius. I’m obsessed with how his mind worked and impacted music forever.

Before Cage started studying Zen Buddhism (one of the many subjects he devoured), he was creatively blocked. To him, his music felt lifeless. As he learned more about Zen practices, he came to believe in a major tenet: the cultivation of an intense awareness of one’s own life.

From there, his reason for making music completely changed. Instead of making music for pure entertainment, he would move on to help people attain this intense awareness of their lives. He wasn’t about making people dance or getting earworms stuck in people’s heads. He wanted to reflect the chaos and gentleness of nature with his composition.

Cage told journalist Calvin Tomkins in an interview:

I would like to think that the sounds people hear in a concert could make them more aware of the sounds they hear in the street, or out in the country, or anywhere they may be.

That grating noise you hear in experimental music sometimes? Could be your neighbor’s voice you hear through the paper-thin walls.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Go on YouTube and search for John Cage’s music. Pick a composition at random. Listen intently. What sounds do you hear that reflect what you hear out in the world? Write them down.

Tearing your heart out on the dancefloor with samä

Code: CONDITION

Currently reading — “Free Play” by Stephen Nachmanovitch

This week, I’m going dancing. It’s time. I need to let down the hairs of my chinny-chin-chin and transcend time and space with my body and the surrounding energy of community.

Stephen Nachmanovitch discusses this feeling in his book “Free Play,” noting the Sufi experience of samä: “dancing yourself into ecstasy.”

He writes:

In [the samä] state, body and mind are so intensely occupied with activity, the brain waves are so thoroughly entrained by the compelling and powerful rhythms, that ordinary self is left behind and a form of heightened awareness arises.

He shares a poem by the poet and choreographer, Rumi, who originated the whirling dervishes. A few lines: “Dancing is not getting up painlessly like a speck of dust blown around in the wind. / Dancing is when you rise above both worlds, tearing your heart to pieces, and giving up your soul.”

I’m about to tear the fuck out of my heart on the dancefloor.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Find a DJ night. Go dancing. Transcend it all.

Yes, I’m still on my mood stabilizers. I’ve just finally mustered the courage to pursue a long-buried dream of mine: crafting a persona, or rather exaggerating parts of myself that I’ve been trying to balance all under one name. There’s Zack the Human (also known as Zack the Creativity Researcher and Founder of a Creative Wellness Platform or Zack the Professional with a Desk Job During the Day), who has serious PR issues with Oro Varos (also known as the Other Zack), who leans heavily into the esoteric, experimental, and abstract side of art and music.

I want the creative freedom to not be Zack, The Guy with a Government-Registered Social Security Number. I contain multitudes. The obsessive need to make dance music with nasty, disgusting synths and thudding drums, from a glammed-up character with a fictionalized backstory, outweighs the need to be prim and proper. I want to wear outrageous outfits. I want to wear sunglasses inside.

The strategic marketing side of me (one small part of Zack the Human) does not want to clutter the narrative. There are too many ideas, and they need to be streamlined. Zack and Oro have decided to sleep in separate bedrooms. Amicably. Zack’s room is a low-lit, cavelike haven with “My Brilliant Friend” on his handsome wood bedside table. Oro’s room is inside a floating orb of light that changes color depending on how much he loves you.

Persona or alter ego creation is not a new concept. I’ve been fascinated by the idea since I discovered Andy Warhol at the age of 14, gay and afraid to pick up a book about him at Books-A-Million in Tupelo, Mississippi, hoping no one saw me. Of course, there are the legends like Madonna, Bowie, Gaga, Beyonce (She is Sasha Fierce), Sun Ra, RuPaul, and Prince—all of them are the role models that give me endless inspiration. All of them reinvented themselves. They are among the most creatively free people I’ve encountered.

“Zack Orsborn” is not the name of a pop star. Oro Varos is. It’s mystical and strange; when you say it out loud, it sounds like you’re casting a spell. The name comes partly from “ourobouros”—the symbol of a snake eating its own tail that represents death, rebirth, and infinity—and partly from my favorite Surrealist painter, Remedios Varo.

I’ve always said that I would love to be a creative director for a pop star. So I’m creating my own pop star, along with his music, look, and story. I am molding a new person who’s going to make people dance and feel things inside of a new world I’m building.

I’m in the process of polishing Oro’s first single. He wants me to tell you, in a whisper, that he can’t wait to see you move and maybe even let out a primal scream you’ve been holding in since you were in your mother’s womb.

In this week’s Creative Wellness Research Log Entry, I will talk about:

• Preparing community gatherings with presence

• How drag queen Jinkx Monsoon uses a persona to channel her favorite artists

• The good, the bad, and the constant chatter of thoughts

• Showering your body with gratitude and love

Preparing community gatherings with presence

Code: COMMUNITY

Currently reading — “The Art of Gathering” by Priya Parker

Marina Abramović is a master of being present. One time, I watched her course on BBC Maestro, and there was an entire episode about staring at walls. The goal? Using silence and objectless meditation to bring you into the present.

She has developed the Abramović Method of Music, which she uses to guide guests into her performance art pieces, as detailed in Priya Parker’s book, “The Art of Gathering.” She transitions them from a stimulating world and basically forces them to be present.

How? Guests wear noise-canceling headphones for 30 minutes. They put their phones in bags. Before a performance, a guest commented that the 30 minutes of silence were awkward at first, but they built anticipation among the waiting crowd. Once the first note of the performance rang out to signal the beginning, the attendees could be fully present.

She even had guests wear gold-foiled covers over their mouths to enforce presence (and silence) even more at her 70th birthday party.

This pause readied guests for a heightened experience with a calmer nervous system, no doubt. When Parker asked why Abramović creates these transitory passageways, she said, “I want to take them from their comfort zone and into a new experience.”

Parker explains more about these types of traditions appearing in traditional societies:

There are many tiny ways you can create a threshold, a pause, before you and your guests cross the starting line together…The idea of helping people transition from one state to another is embedded in many rituals of traditional societies. It’s the equivalent of a doctor taking off her jacket and putting on her white coat as she enters her office. It’s the act of Muslims washing their hands and feet before prayer. It can be the removal of shoes before a Japanese tea ceremony.

You might not need to buy a ton of noise-canceling headphones (times are hard), but you can signal to your guests entering one of your gatherings that you want them to be present for a new experience.

Creative Experiment to Try:

The next time you host an event or gathering, think of a strange (aka fun) way to get guests to transition into your gathering. Bonus points for getting them to put their phones away.

How drag queen Jinx Monsoon uses a persona to channel her favorite artists

Code: CRAFT

Currently reading — “Magic Maker” by Pam Grossman

If you know me, you know that I have encyclopedic knowledge of RuPaul’s Drag Race. It is my comfort show. As I mentioned earlier, RuPaul is one of my idols I look to for inspiration and emulation. He’s even said it in his MasterClass: find an artist/celebrity to emulate and follow in their footsteps, as he did with Diana Ross, Cher, and so many others. He’s an amalgamation of his favorite divas with a twisted sense of humor and his own brand of punk. RuPaul built his career on shapeshifting and exaggerating his higher self.

Which leads me to Jinkx Monsoon, the winner of the fifth season of Drag Race (and All Stars All Winners), which is my favorite season of Drag Race. Jinkx is a self-proclaimed witch and a shapeshifter, and seemingly everything she manifests has come true (with hard work and a wicked sense of humor).

Pam Grossman, author of “Magic Maker: The Enchanted Path to Creativity,” interviewed Jinkx about how she developed her drag persona.

Jinkx said:

I always say that the best way to start when creating a drag persona is to kind of create a recipe of three to five personal divas that contribute to your drag persona. And mine changes over time, but I think the five that stay constant are Carol Burnett, Bette Davis, Lucille Ball, Madeline Kahn, and Bette Midler. I’ve always said that even though I have all these other influences, essentially I’m just channeling my mother.

My five divas: Gaga, Madonna, Remedios Varo, Sasha Velour, Kelela. And honorary mention that changes all the time: Slayyyter.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Identify a part of yourself that you love but normally keep quiet. Give that part a name. Draw that part. Embody that persona for a day.

The good, the bad, and the constant chatter of thoughts

Code: CLARITY

Currently reading — “The Joy of Living” by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

As I deepen my practice of being in the present moment, I’m more aware of what my thoughts are actually saying, how much shame can slide in, and how old scripts from the past are replayed in a loop. Now, instead of going for a ride with those loops, I am mostly able to recognize them as what they actually are: just thoughts.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Buddhist and meditation master, says that being in the present moment invites you to be part of the process of “nonjudgmental awareness” as we start labeling our thoughts as good or bad. He says there is no such thing as “good” or “bad” thoughts. They are just thoughts.

When we can recognize that the chatter in our minds is a series of “gossipy neurons” producing signals, we can find a sense of clarity and clearheadedness.

Rinpoche says:

When we meditate, we adopt the objective perspective of a scientist toward our own subjective experience…If we continue to simply allow ourselves to be aware of the activity of our minds, we’ll very gradually come to recognize the transparent nature of the thoughts, emotions, sensations, and perceptions we once considered solid and real.

It helps to tell myself sometimes: thoughts are temporary—actions are forever.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Set a timer for 10 minutes and sit in silence. Let your mind wander. Each time you catch yourself judging the quality of a thought, think the word “thought.” After, journal a page about the kind of thoughts you had during this experiment.

Showering your body with love and gratitude

Code: CONDITION

Currently watching — “No Mud, No Lotus” by Thích Nhất Hạnh

I love me some Thích Nhất Hạnh. I love the clarity with which he wrote and how his lifelong mission was as simple as this: to reduce suffering in the world. I love how his mantra— “ I am home. I have arrived.” — is now ingrained in my head as I meditate and as I walk slowly as a reminder that I have nowhere to be except the present moment. It’s such a relief.

One way that Hạnh reduces suffering is by practicing deep relaxation, showing gratitude to the body, one body part at a time. When was the last time you thanked your legs for walking or your eyes for seeing? It’s a simple practice, but one we often don't think to do in the rush of our day-to-day.

I’ve noticed this: the more in touch I am with my body, the more I can notice shifts in creative energy. I can tell when I need to rest, when I can amp things up. In between those periods, I can take the time to thank my body, the main tool of expressing creativity.

Hạnh says this about doing a body-scan meditation for deeper relaxation and gratitude:

Deep relaxation begins with observing our bodies. You can start with your eyes. “Breathing in, I’m aware of my eyes. Breathing out, I smile to my eyes with gratitude and love.” Then bring your awareness down to your nose, your mouth, your throat, and continue down to your toes. You go through your whole body, bringing your awareness to each part. “Breathing in, I’m aware of my heart. Breathing out, I smile to my heart with love.” My heart is essential to my well-being. It works nonstop and nourishes all the cells in my body. I’m so grateful to my heart.

You know what? I AM grateful for my heart.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Take some time to do a body-scan meditation, thanking each part of your body as you move from the top of your head to the bottom of your toes by saying, “Breathing in, I’m aware of my [body part]. Breathing out, I smile to my [body part] with gratitude and love.”

These are good problems to have, as they say. I am surrounded by community. I am inspired by the artists who lead the workshops I facilitate, as well as by all the Collage Party creatives who make dazzling collages. I’m on a first-name basis with many of the attendees who regularly come to events I host. I have family and friends who can help me move.

With all that said, I couldn’t help but complain as I kept anticipating the next event in the long chain. I kept saying whenever anybody asked how I was doing: “I am weary.” Time will do that to you. Everything will happen at once (like having three events and moving to a new apartment in the span of five days) despite all the planning. I just had to push through it and befriend my negative thoughts instead of letting them pull me down. I just don’t like hard, physical labor. I am sick of lifting heavy boxes.

But I am alive. In the midst of all the motion, I can forget to practice gratitude. I want to take this intro essay to note what I’m grateful for.

I am grateful for: starting a new painting and a new song in the quiet pockets of time; how courageous everybody was at Community Builders Anonymous for sharing vulnerable moments; my friends Meghan, John and Zan for providing their talents for the Creative Energy Playground; libraries and library staff; all the volunteers who helped set up and clean up before and after the Collage Party; Anderson with The Ugly Art Co. who has opened so many doors for me; Emily for making the world a kinder and more beautiful place; for Justin and Micky for deep talks; my mom and stepdad for driving down from Tupelo to help me move; the awesome TaskRabbit Josh for going backwards up the stairs as we lifted the heaviest fucking dresser that’s ever existed; lighting incense for the first time in a new place; falling asleep on the couch while reading; new windows to look out; the trees I will get to look at from now on; learning all the sounds of my new place; for security, for a body, for a voice, for a purpose, for a calling, for each and every single day that I get to breathe and live and create and share.

In this week’s Creative Wellness Research Log Entry, I will talk about:

• Envy as a guide for inspiring community

• Getting playful with our bodies for a Collaborative Creature Collage

• Boredom as a “barometer of meaning”

• Using movement as therapy to quiet the Inner Critic

Use envy as a guide

Code: COMMUNITY

Currently reading — “Hard Feelings” by Daniel Smith

This probably won’t come as a shock, but the “titans” of modern society literally stir up envy of others' lifestyles, leading us to want to buy more or to appear a certain way. We want to keep up.

I won’t go into the history of how corporations manipulate our emotions as Daniel Smith does in his incredible book, Hard Feelings, but I will leave you with a quote that Smith uses from Edward Bernays (the “father of public relations”) in Propaganda: “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”

Many of us (me) have learned to cope with an inferiority complex, an idea developed by Alfred Adler, that we use external measures of worth to cover up. Secretly, we seethe with envy. It’s part of Mimetic Theory, born from ideas from René Girard, who basically says that individualism is a farce: we want what others have, and we copy them. We do not have original desires. Scary people like Peter Thiel love Mimetic Theory and use it willingly.

Naturally, competition eclipses compassion. I’ve seen it happen, and even experienced it myself, within creative communities. Rifts occur.

Smith goes on to explain:

You see what your peers have and you feel almost metaphysically diminished. This other person seems to possess a “fullness of being” that you lack. They seem to be living better than you. They know the score. They are winning. That this is almost always false doesn’t make it any more tolerable. The difference eats at you. You feel compelled to respond—to prove that you are on par, even superior. It is an existential dogfight with no natural resolution.

I believe in a “natural resolution.” There are a few things I’ve learned, as someone well acquainted with the emotion of envy growing up feeling inferior: use envy as a guide. When you are feeling envious of someone, you can turn that feeling into admiration. What about them do you admire? Instead of trying to angrily compete with them, be inspired by them.

There’s plenty of room for all of us to try new things that we think we don’t deserve.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Note the last time you felt envious of someone in your creative community. Make a list of what they do that inspires you. Try one of those things this week.

Getting playful with your body

Code: CRAFT

Currently facilitating — The Creative Energy Playground

I am continuously in awe of my friend and artist, Meghan Tsitsuashvili. She is the Queen of Creative Play, which is exactly why I asked her to lead an activity at the Creative Playground I facilitated at the Raleigh Library this week called The Creative Energy Playground.

She did not disappoint. First, she gave everyone a piece of paper and told them to draw their body, in freeform style, starting from either the top of their head or the bottom of their feet. As you draw, she asked that you depict (as best you can) feelings found in your body as you traveled through it. Looking around the room, I saw wavy lines, tight circles, rays of light.

After, we got out the large roll of craft paper and traced parts of our bodies with it. We cut out what we traced and decorated our parts with standard craft items (markers, glitter glue); all so we could make one giant Creature Collage. There were eyeballs glued to legs, a pierced nose taped to an arm, a full body covered in glitter glue (with more eyeballs glued on top of it). Everyone worked together on where each body part should be placed.

Honestly, it felt good to be in our bodies, giggling and playing like kids again. The energy was fantastic.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Trace parts of your body on paper, small or large. Cut them out. Make a collage from the pieces.

Using boredom as a “barometer of meaning”

Code: CLARITY

Currently reading — “Hard Feelings” by Daniel Smith

I wrote about boredom last week, and it just so happened to coincide with my reading of an essay by Daniel Smith (mentioned earlier) called “Boredom” in his book Hard Feelings.

The entire premise of his book is that emotions, positive or negative, can serve as a form of wisdom about our needs and self-actualization.

I was excited to see a whole chapter about boredom. I have a love-hate relationship with boredom, so it was a pleasure to see how Smith did a deep dive into the ins and outs of the (painful) emotion.

Smith says:

We believe that what we are doing serves a valuable function, so we aren’t bothered by it; or we believe that what we are doing does not serve a valuable function, is mere tedium or repetition, and we are bored. Boredom, as one paper puts it, is “a barometer of meaning.” It is an emotional instrument, an existential Geiger counter wildly pinging whenever we enter the territory of the pale, the senseless, and the empty.

I was endlessly bored by working at an automotive tool company, churning out content for the labyrinthine backend of Amazon. I kind of hate tools. It was completely meaningless work.

So I quit.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Get out your journal and set a timer for 5 minutes. Freewrite things that do not bore you.

Movement quiets the Inner Critic

Code: CONDITION

Currently watching — “Mental Strength” Masterclass Course by Robin Arzón

When fitness expert Robin Arzón was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, she went on an investigation to figure out the mind-body connection before running an ultramarathon in just 3 months after the diagnosis.

Through this journey, she leaned into the discomfort. She explains that movement generates endorphines, but it also generates discomfort, and over time, makes discomfort “less scary.”

By adding movement to her everyday life and studying others who use movement daily, she began to recognize that movement amplifies all other aspects of their lives.

Arzón says:

Movement is a way to quiet the inner critic and amplify the inner advocate…Movement is a trusted advocate and a trusted resource that I have access to whenever I want it and prioritize it. That trusted relationship between who I am and who I can be after a workout is healing and cathartic. It is therapy.

I can attest. I used to be so sedentary. Now I try to move every day. Without it, I feel grumpy. I don’t want to work on creative projects, even though I love working on them. It doesn’t have to be a lot. Obviously, if you are ill, rest.

A little movement goes a long way.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Every day this week, set a timer for three minutes and move. Walk, do jumping jacks, thrash about wildly, do squats, do the Running Man. Just move for three minutes every day.

We were brought together for our own individual reasons—a recharge, a reawakening, a breakdown, a split from screens, a deepening of meditation practices—at the Magnolia Grove Monastery, spearheaded by one of the most popular Buddhist masters, Thich Nhat Hanh. Deep in the forests of Batesville, Mississippi, of all places, crawling with wildflowers and towering, swaying trees in the middle of spring.

Before we shared who we were and what brought us together, we sang a song that encapsulated my experience at the 2-day meditation retreat:

And when I rise, let me rise, like a bird, joyfully.

And when I fall, let me fall, like a leaf, gracefully, without regret.

Several reasons brought me to Magnolia Grove. I wanted a break from my phone, a full two days without a screen, to wrestle with the nagging and irritating feeling of needing to mainline external validation; I wanted to deepen my meditation practice and experience what I’ve been reading about in Buddhist literature over the last six years; I wanted to dive deeper into the connection between mindfulness and creativity; I wanted to celebrate the completion of a 90-day abstinence from one of my addictions.

I wanted to learn how to be more joyful, how to fall gracefully, without regret. And I think I did, at least an ounce of it. Mindful meditation is a lifelong practice. Through sitting, walking, working, and eating meditation, I could feel my mind unspool. I also felt the discomfort of all the difficult emotions I had been suppressing rising to the surface, one angry irritant at a time. I felt myself wanting to isolate, annoyed when someone wasn’t “following the rules,” or talking too much. I could tell one of the retreat-goers was uncomfortable with silence. In my head, I kept telling him, “Shut the fuck up.” That old cloak of the superiority complex tightened around me. All I could do was sit with it and practice smiling, focusing on my breath, and repeating the mantra I learned from a dharma talk by Thich Nhat Hanh: I have arrived. I am home.

When I caught myself in irritation, I tried to recall an idea I read in Hanh’s No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering: that when we understand our own suffering, we grow compassion for others in their suffering. We can help ease their suffering. I believe I catalog my suffering through fiction, my visual art, my music, and step work in recovery programs, not to live in my suffering, but to pour light on it and give it a proper burial. When I can examine my suffering, I can unload and find clarity. It makes me more creative. It can be tedious and time-consuming, especially since I practice impatience.

I am addicted to rushing. Moving fast is my natural state. Throughout middle school and college, I was always the first person in class to finish a test. I began to wear my working speed as a badge of honor, a medal to prove that I was worthy. Check me out, stranger. Can you finish a test that fast? In my mind, it is crucial that I move fast because there is always more work to be done. There’s also something waiting on some other side, something better that will get me closer to an imagined future (that I can’t actually ever control).

I walk fast, too. I was brought to tears when a nun gave me a tour of the monastery grounds on my first day. I showed up to the retreat pissed off and overstimulated. The traffic was a sludge. I was screaming in my car. But on the tour, I caught a glimpse of what to expect: the nun was walking incredibly slowly. Painfully slow. I matched her pace, and that’s when I started to tear up. I thought to myself: I am getting permission to intentionally slow down. There is no rush. No rush at all.

I felt myself opening up. I was curious about how she ended up in Mississippi after living in Vietnam. I asked her how she liked Mississippi, where I was born and raised. She responded, “Peaceful.” The 24 years of non-peace I experienced in Mississippi seemed to dissolve as I considered her perspective. I looked around. This place was peaceful.

I did find myself rushing at one point because my alarm did not go off for the 5:30 AM sitting meditation. I woke up, panicked, at 5:20 AM, bladder full, eyes glazed over with sleep. I made my way through the dark grounds, praying I wouldn’t trip over a loose rock. I had to piss so bad and battled with myself: either you piss now, or you sit with how much you have to piss during a 30-minute meditation. I decided to use the bathroom, repeatedly eying my watch like a weatherman tracking a tornado. 5:27 AM. There was no way I would make it to the meditation hall, but I kept going, kicking up gravel, ignoring the navy blue of early morning dancing in the sky, hoping nobody saw how fast I was walking. It felt illegal. Right as I made it up the stairs, it turned 5:30. I did not make it to the door. I could not enter. I would not dare disturb the peace. I turned back around, out of breath, feeling shame, but then laughed to myself. You really tried, didn’t you? I found a spot for myself on a bench beneath a giant wind chime and meditated on how the wind made it play music.

After, we all practiced a formal walking meditation session, walking slowly, matching our breaths to our pace, in a line down a Mississippi backroad, green leaves arching above us, birds tittering, honeysuckle flowers fragrant, seeing phrases like “This it it,” and “The Kingdom of the Present Moment,” and “You are therefore I am.” We arrived in a beautiful garden, a statue of Thich Nhat Hanh and Martin Luther King, Jr. holding a manual together. Everybody stopped. Some sat on a bench, others walked deeper into the garden to look closely at the dew-misted magnolias. We had permission to just exist together.

Between the scheduled events, I was undeniably bored out of my mind. I had urges to check my phone, see who had messaged me, how many likes an event flyer got, how I was advancing in capitalism. I wanted to get up and move around. I needed an external event to give me adrenaline.

This is where I noticed the progress I have made within myself: instead of relieving the skin-crawling boredom, I leaned into it. When my mind started to race (I had 876 songs stuck in my head the entire weekend), I could listen for a second, but then I would return to the present moment. I became friends with boredom. I know that boredom gifts me with ideas. Boredom lets me see the world around me that I miss all the time. Boredom pisses me off, but it sets me free. An idea for a short story appeared. A line to a lyric for a song I’ve been working on popped into my head. I didn’t have to act on it. I could think more about the story and the lyric. I could continue to notice my in-breath and out-breath. I could sip my tea and watch the squirrels forage for food. I could laugh at a memory from a few hours before: a cardinal kept repeatedly bashing itself into the window of the Meditation Hall as we were about to listen to a dharma talk; a retreat-goer whispered, “It’s a cardinal. They hate their reflections and will attack themselves,” to which someone responded, “Relatable.” His words echoed.

In the boredom, I could give myself grace for the negative thoughts that tend to arise when I sit in silence. Cleaving the thoughts from emotions becomes easier. A weight is lifted. I’m recognizing that I’m always in the process of waking up. So is everybody else around me. One of the sisters taught us their practice of bowing by making their hands into a lotus flower and bending toward somebody to recognize that they are a “Buddha to be.” They are in the process of awakening.

I plan to keep on waking up. Here’s what I learned that I want to continue practicing:

• Walking slowly. Walking meditation is a key tenet in Hanh’s teachings. With every in-breath you match with your pace, I can say, “I have arrived.” With every out-breath, I can say, “I am home.” There’s no place to go. I am always arriving. I am always home. I don’t have to strive, yearn, or plead with the external world to see me anymore. I will practice meditation walking once a week. I will walk slowly to my car, through the halls at work, up the stairs, everywhere I go. What’s waiting on the other side is always here.

• Eating in silence. I did not realize how much eating in silence, slowly, would affect me. I am always watching a screen when I eat. I fill my mouth before I’ve even swallowed my last bite. I take huge bites. I look up, and I’m already done. From now on, I will not watch anything while I eat. It is blissful.

• Setting a meditation bell. One of my favorite things from the retreat was the practice of everyone stopping what they were doing and focusing on their breath for a few seconds whenever a bell rang. I noticed a bell went off every fifteen minutes. Each time I did it, I found myself back in the present, “in the here and in the now.” I have a physical Pomodoro timer that I set to 15 minutes. Whenever it goes off, I stop, breathe in, and breathe out. I hear and feel my breath.

• Meditating in the quiet of the morning instead of the afternoon. Although I missed the first morning meditation (I did make it to the second one!), I found solace in morning meditations. Typically, I meditate for 20 minutes around 1:00 PM to recharge, but I often fall asleep. I will move my afternoon meditation to the morning after my 5-minute stretching routine.

• More silence in general. I am too easily overstimulated. I need to come to terms with this and honor it, rather than amping up the volume. I can’t express how calm I felt without all the noise. Usually, in the mornings when I shower, I blast loud electronic dance music. It’s too much. During lunch, I’m watching a podcast in my car as I scarf down a salad. It’s too much. Before bed, I’ve gotten back into the habit I thought I crushed: watching TV before bed. It’s too much. When I’m waiting in line, I’m scrolling. It’s too much. I don’t need all this damn noise. I could even stand to read less. I consume so much. The brothers and sisters practice Noble Silence every night. At 9:30 PM, everybody quits talking. I’m going to move mine to 8:30 PM (as much as I can), which means: no phone in my room, no TV on. I will get back into the habit of reading before bed.

I can’t live exactly as I did at the retreat every day. That’s not my purpose. Hanh writes in No Mud, No Lotus that he would dedicate his life to studying Zen Buddhism and to living a monastic life, leaving behind his mother, whom he dearly loved. But he knew it was his purpose to do so.

Out of boredom, out of digging around in the mud of suffering and addiction and self-hatred, out of experimenting and failing and moving too fast so I could learn to move slower, out of living with silence, I discovered my purpose. My purpose is to help creatives maintain creative energy without burning out, to write about creativity and artists, and to make art myself so I can gain as much helpful knowledge as possible. I can continue practicing what I learned from the beautiful brothers and sisters at Magnolia Grove Monastery. I know it will deepen my creative practice and, most importantly, my serenity. I can’t help others if I’m agitated at the world. I can’t stay connected to my true creative self if I keep disconnecting out of fear.

All I can do is practice being in “the kingdom of the present moment.”

I was possessed by a Muse. I got the urge to paint after seeing two show openings at The Ugly Art Co. and Sheetcake Gallery, and after talking with the artists who inhabit Something Solid Studios. The amount of fuschia and teal and egg shell blue and neon pink was astounding. Color was shouting at me: YOU NEED TO PAINT. YOU NEED TO SCREW AROUND WITH COLOR. CUT SOME SHIT UP AND GLUE IT DOWN.

The combination of seeing all the well-crafted art, talking to full-time fine artists in their studios about their work and life, and walking in an arts district textured by street art inspired me. I felt energized after a relaxed vacation.

I have a few ideas percolating up there. I’ve been into oil pastels on black paper lately. I think it’d be fun to rip some of the things I’ve done and collage with it. Maybe dab on some paint. Definitely going to explore fuchsia.

In this week’s Creative Wellness Research Log Entry, I will talk about:

• How tarot card collages connect community

• Getting ugly with Robert Rauschenberg

• The cleansing benefits of forest bathing

• Making a Mental Movie Reel for stressful moments

Making tarot card collages with community

Code: COMMUNITY

Currently facilitating — “MUSE:MYSTERY Tarot Collage Workshop with Jasmine Marie”

Speaking of being inspired: tarot. Tarot cards have been a source of inspiration for millions of artists, including me, for centuries. The symbolism, the archetypal meanings, the esoteric wisdom they possess; the cards are a fount of meaning.

I wanted to use the inspiring method of tarot to bring people together for the MUSE:MYSTERY Tarot Collage workshop, hosted at Bar DKDC this past Monday. I asked my friend Jasmine Marie—a collage artist, photographer, and writer—to lead the workshop. She prompted us to create a collage of a tarot card based on where we are in life on our journey.

As people got to work, they began to ask questions of those around them. What does that symbol mean for you? Why did you choose that image? How did you answer this question?

Curiosity connected everyone. We started off as mysteries. When you ask questions, you can apply the answers to your own work or even your own sense of self-awareness. You can be present with the underlying braid that connects us all.

Once everyone was finished, we asked people to come up to the mic and share. There was hesitation at first, but once a few got up to share their creations and the meaning behind the symbols they chose, the crowd relaxed and more and more shared.

They were all cheered on as they shared their experiences of being in weird liminal spaces, the excitement of engagement, the thrill of upcoming adventures, owning their magic, and discovering new things about themselves.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Flip through a magazine or a book you wouldn’t mind cutting up. Choose five images that represent where you are in your life. Make a collage from them. Write out a short meaning of what the symbols mean to you. Gift the collage and meaning to a friend.

Nothing wrong with getting a little ugly with Robert Rauschenberg

Code: CRAFT

Currently reading — “Moving Out: Robert Rauschenberg” by Calvin Tomkins

Robert Rauschenberg, one of the pioneers of pop art in the late 1950s-1960s, started from humble beginnings. His art practice was led by curiosity more than aesthetic perfection.

In Calvin Tomkins’ profile of the artist, published in the New Yorker in 1964, he recounts a story about a woman viewing his art and calling it “ugly.” It reminds me of my friend Anderson Goin, owner of The Ugly Art Co., who built an entire brand and collective based on someone calling his art ugly.

The woman’s disgust actually thrilled Rauschenberg.

He had to use “ugly” things, in the sense that he was poor and would find materials as he went on walks. He used murkier colors that weren’t aesthetically pleasing to the snobbery of the fine art world at the time. Rauschenberg was quoted in the profile, saying, “I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly, because they’re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable.”

Tomkins notes that Rauschenberg respects the integrity of the objects he uses in his work, without altering them for symbolic purposes.

Tomkins says:

Rauschenberg’s zest for exploration seems unimpaired, and his attitude toward painting and toward life in general is pretty much the same as it always has been—one of sheer delight.

Ugly is the new pretty.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Make a list of things you find “ugly.” Circle three items. Make a piece of work inspired by those “ugly” items.

Take a forest bath

Code: CLARITY

Currently reading — “Magic Maker: The Enchanted Path to Creativity” by Pam Grossman

Continuing with the magic theme of this entry, I’ve started reading “Magic Maker: The Enchanted Path of Creativity” by Pam Grossman, which has led me down several rabbit holes. The book has two purposes. One is to recount the history of how artists have used magic/esoteric practices to enhance their creativity, and how we can use those practices ourselves.

In the chapter titled “Cleansing/Clearing,” Grossman talks about the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing.

It’s a mindfulness technique in which you enter a forest or natural environment, walk slowly, and pay attention to all your senses. She says, “It’s considered to be therapeutic on multiple levels, soothing for one’s inner terrain, a balm for the spirit and mind.”

Not only can it cleanse your mind so you can clear mental space for creativity, but you also get the benefits of being around trees.

Grossman continues:

Trees also emit volatile oils called phytoncides that have antimicrobial properties and may have positive effects on the immune system—and so biochemically there seems to be benefits to shinrin-yoku as well.

SAVE THE TREES!!!!

Creative Experiment to Try:

Go for a forest bath for at least 30 minutes. Engage all your senses. Thank the trees.

Battling stress with your own personal Highlight Reel

Code: CONDITION

Currently watching — “Mental Strength” Masterclass Course by Robin Arzón

I have a new role model: Robin Arzón, a fitness expert and Peloton Head Instructor. I discovered her while browsing Masterclass. I saw her class titled “Mental Strength” and was curious. I find her incredibly charming, and I relate to her backstory of coming out of pain and finding the true calling she never expected.

In the second episode, she talks about turning pain into power. I’ve found that transmuting emotional stress in the body into something triumphant is freeing. It clears out a pathway for more creative action and idea generation.

To turn pain into power, Arzón says, you can see challenges as a gateway to self-repair and resiliency.

She recommends creating a Mental Movie Reel to play in your head during stressful times. You can unpack your stories by writing down five to seven triumphant moments when things were difficult, but you survived. The practice can show you just how strong you’ve been throughout life if you are triggered by stress.

Arzón says:

Once you have those [triumphant moments] abbreviated, punctuated, like three or four bullets in your head, I recommend when you wake up in the morning or before you go to bed, close your eyes and visualize yourself experiencing those moments and feeling the emotions of the confidence, the joy, the fear. When we start to feel those physical manifestations of stress, it’s human nature to start to unravel a little bit. This is where you bring in the Mental Movie Reel to bring you back to center and back to purpose.

Before difficult races, Arzón would play her own Mental Movie Reel to remember just how resilient she is.

I will be playing it next time I talk to my crush.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Storyboard your Mental Movie Reel to practice visualizing. Write out 5 to 7 moments where you overcame difficulties. Try to recall this Mental Movie Reel when physical manifestations of stress start to appear in your body.

Using my Four Codes of Creative Energy framework—Community, Craft, Clarity, and Condition—I aim to identify what works and what doesn’t, what trends I can recognize, and how much stable creative output I can maintain, depending on which beneficial activities I choose to pursue or avoid.

My research question: How do daily levels of Community, Craft, Clarity, and Condition relate to my creative energy, mood, output, and well-being?

I’ve been loosely tracking how these Codes affect me for about two years now, but I wanted to gather detailed data so I can explore my theories more thoroughly.

I’m not a trained scientist, but I’ve always been an experimenter since I was young, according to my mom. I had imposter syndrome as I put this study together, thinking, “Who the hell am I to come up with a research study???”

But I was reading The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche when I encountered the Buddhist idea of following “the Path.” It begins with presenting a theory (“The Four Codes of Creative Energy helps maintain stable creative energy without burning out”), then the practitioner engages in various methods of practice (being in community, meditating, exercising, working on creative projects), culminating in the “the Fruit,” where you analyze “the results of personal experiments.” It’s more subjective than Western scientific objectivity. And I like that.

I created a Google Form to fill out at the end of each day, where I enter components such as hours of sleep, time spent on social media, and my Body Battery (tracked on my Garmin watch). I also record total minutes spent on creating, meditating, moving, and journaling. I track my daily mood in the morning, my overall mood throughout the day, and my motivation to create that day. It includes a mix of quantitative and qualitative data. The last field I complete is “What stood out about today?” where I describe everything I did—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

It’s still early to share the results, but I already see that the more time I spend on social media, the less motivated I am to create.

In this week’s Creative Wellness Research Log Entry, I will talk about:

• How Jean Tinguely was energetically inspired by an art show (Community)

• How Julio Torres’s “Color Theories” invites you to see life differently (Craft)

• How impatience can make you aggressive (Clarity)

• How Fiona Apple transformed pain into bodily wisdom (Condition)

How one artist’s show energized Jean Tinguely to create a masterpiece

Code: COMMUNITY

Currently reading — “Jean Tinguely” from The Lives of Artists, Volume One, by Calvin Tomkins

I’ve found a new obsession: the four-volume collection of artist profiles (previously published in The New Yorker) by Calvin Tomkins called “The Lives of Artists.”

The first profile centers on Jean Tinguely—sculptor and pioneer of kinetic art—as he prepares to unveil one of his greatest works, “Homage to New York,” at the Museum of Modern Art in 1960. It was his first auto-destructive work that would give him icon status. He built it so it could destroy itself.

What stood out to me was how much Tinguely relied on the creative community that surrounded him to bring his visions to fruition. He was far from the cliché of the isolated artist.

After seeing Yves Klein’s exhibition “Le Vide,” Tinguely was “galvanized into artistic action” after feeling creatively blocked. Tinguely basically became obsessed with the work and drummed up a friendship with the painter.

He persuaded Klein to collaborate on an exhibition together that energized him.

Tomkins writes:

Tinguely began to work with such intensity that life in the Impasse Ronsin became more than usually difficult for his neighbors…Tinguely himself remembers this period as one in which he was working in a kind of trance. Tinguely’s amazement and enthusiasm over his work at this period were matched only by those of his admirers, who flocked to his shows in droves.

Tinguely was “that neighbor.” But his enthusiasm, inspired by Klein, led to a historic masterpiece.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Attend an art show, concert, or reading. If possible, try to strike up a conversation with the artist and ask what inspired their work.

The life-defining color theories of Julio Torres

Code: CRAFT

Currently watching — “Color Theories” by Julio Torres

Comedian Julio Torres is (thankfully) bringing back absurd Surrealism into the zeitgeist. I gobble up anything he’s part of. I love his mind and how he demolishes conventional boundaries with a queer flair.

I watched his latest comedy show, “Color Theories,” on HBO yesterday. His website describes the genre-bending show as “blending stand-up, surreal design, and dream logic into a whimsical exploration of color, emotion, and identity that is equal parts comedy, theater, and art piece.” Sold.

He goes through several colors to explain life through observational humor, intertwining pop culture references with societal ills.

He says:

Everybody knows what I mean when I say the sound of rain is green. Or if I say flying a kite is yellow. Or Ellen. Yes, my peer, Ellen DeGeneres. We understand that she presents as yellow. However, a little peek behind the curtain has shown us what? BOOM. Red. Her yellow exterior and red interior are not touching and creating orange. Because orange, that is a great thing to be. Everyone loves orange. Because orange is the midpoint between childlike wonder and rage. Who is orange? Who is right in the middle? The Rock.

And navy blue? He says, “Navy blue is law and order. Navy blue is having to create an account.”

Creative Experiment to Try:

Pick three colors. For each color, write out five associations you have for these colors from daily observations. Combine these associations into a poem or painting.

The aggression of impatience

Code: CLARITY

Currently watching — Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Masterclass course, “Meditation”

Since I was a child, I’ve struggled with being patient. Even my grandma would say (lovingly, because she found it endearing), “You are so impatient.”

I want to get shit done. I hate waiting. I’m always looking toward the future. In this tension, I can find myself getting irritable and huffy. I stop taking deep breaths. My eyebrow furrows.

As I’m deepening my meditation practice, I've started watching Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Masterclass course on Meditation. Kabat-Zinn did groundbreaking research on how meditation reduces stress and developed “mindfulness-based stress reduction.” I completed an 8-week MBSR course and had significant benefits.

In the episode titled “Attitudinal Foundations of Mindfulness,” he talks about how non-judging, patience, having a Beginner’s Mind, trust, non-striving, and acceptance are important to keep in mind while having a meditation practice.

I zeroed in on what he said about patience, a quality I hope to possess one day. By noticing how impatient we can become, we can begin to be more patient.

He says:

The beauty of keeping patience even as a possibility in mind, not some kind of ideal, is that we immediately become aware of how impatient we are, and how many times we want to get to an end result and will drive through whatever is between us and that end result. So we’re kind of forcing ourselves to get out of the present moment because we’re anticipating some better present moment in the future.

He goes on to say that impatience can have an aggressive tinge to it that others have to deal with. When you can begin to recognize and practice patience, you might be less on edge. When you’re less on edge, creativity can naturally thrive.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Get out a journal and complete an “Impatience Inventory.” Write out what makes you impatient. For each impatience event, describe how you alleviate that tension. Finally, answer: “How does impatience hinder my creativity?”

Why Fiona Apple just wants to feel everything

Code: CONDITION

Currently reading — “Hard Feelings” by Daniel Smith

I perked up when I saw the title of Daniel Smith’s book of essays called “Hard Feelings: Finding the Wisdom in Our Darkest Emotions.” The whole premise attempts to debunk the idea that emotions are “negative.” They might make you feel weird, but there are insights into greater self-awareness behind emotions like shame, envy, and annoyance.

He weaves in his own personal history about his struggle with managing “difficult” emotions. He talks about how Fiona Apple’s “Every Single Night” helped him feel his emotions and be unafraid of what they had to say.

His favorite line: “I just want to feel everything.” He uses that line as a mantra during stressful moments.

That’s one of the key aspects of practicing the Condition Code: feeling things in your body instead of ignoring them. When you can feel emotions in your body, you can release tension, giving you more freedom to create.

Smith says about the song:

‘Every Single Night’ is about self-consciousness, feeling, and pain. Every night, the song begins, awful thoughts occur to the singer. Worries. Doubts. Regrets. Self-recriminations. Should’ves. Shouldn’t-haves. All the stuff of the brain chugging away in the dark. But this isn’t ‘where the pain comes in.’ The pain only comes when the stuff of the brain filters down into the body, where it swells into a ‘blaze,’ and where the emotions become unmanageably large, larger even than the body they fill. Now the singer feels that her ‘breast’s gonna bust open.’

As the song continues, Apple turns the pain she feels in her body into a credo. She just wants to feel everything.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Listen to the song “Every Single Night” by Fiona Apple while doing gentle movements or stretches. After that, journal for three minutes about what you felt and the emotions that came up.

I found yellow flowers. I collected a bundle of maroon, tube-like flora. I picked dandelions. I plucked flowers from dogwood trees (and got paranoid that it might be illegal).

Satisfied with my bouquet, I started the trek back to my apartment when I was stopped by a man getting out of a suped-up truck, panic on his face.

“Where did you get those? I need those.” Eyes wide.

“I found them in the trails. There’s a bunch out there.”

“Because I really need those,” he said. “I really fucked up.”

I should have asked what he fucked up, but I assumed it had to do with relationship strife. I imagined him out there, all the wrongs swirling in his head, thinking, “I hope she forgives me.”

I kept walking. An idea struck me as they tend to do when I’m walking (especially without my phone or no plan). I would use the bouquet as a prop for experimental self-portraits. I had some time to kill before my friend got back from a baby shower. I’ve been taking a lot of portraits lately, and I wanted to turn the camera on myself. I wanted to do something editorial, to mess around with editing, to bring out colors that hide in the shadows, to celebrate spring. I wanted to celebrate a milestone (more on that in a later post).

During the photoshoot, I entered a flow state. I tried new angles. I felt excitement.

This giddiness intensified as I began editing the photos in Lightroom, playing with odd crops. I toyed with the color and effect sliders. I figured out a new technique to make photos look dreamier.

It was pure, intrinsic creativity. It felt like when I was creating in my youth, just for fun. Trying new things and not knowing what the outcome would be. There was no outcome.

It was all for the love of experimenting.

In this week’s Creative Wellness Research Log Entry, I will talk about:

• The benefits of “I Am Here” days (Community)

• How to disappear into a flow state (Craft)

• Examining your needs for creative flourishing (Clarity)

• Feeling the numbness to help soften your body (Condition)

Be here now (just for one day, at least)

Code: COMMUNITY

Currently reading — “The Art of Gathering” by Priya Parker

We all need a little more adventure with friends without our phones. We need to get out and explore and leave it up to fate. That’s how deeper memories are made. At least, that’s my theory.

In her book “The Art of Gathering,” professional facilitator Priya Parker writes about a gathering format she calls “I Am Here” Days. The format imposes a few constraints, so a group can be more present as they explore and discover parts of town they don’t normally visit.

The “I Am Here” Days started with just two people, but as they grew into group expeditions, a few guidelines were put in place to ensure people got the full experience. The two main rules: they were going to spend a full day together without technology.

Here are the rules Parker laid out:

• If you’re going to join an “I Am Here” day, be there from start to finish (all 10-12 hours)

• Turn off technology (unless it directly relates to the day).

• Agree to be present and engaged in the group and what’s going on.

• One conversation at meals.

• Be game for anything.

Parker says, “We tend to associate rules with formality and stiffness, but in our ‘I Am Here’ days we found that rules created intimacy.”

Parker’s friend, Bratunde Thurston, wrote this about their experience of the “I Am Here” Days:

It’s rare for groups of people to do things together for a sustained amount of time. We all carry with us the technical capacity to be anywhere, to check out of the present time or space. So the active choice to do ONE thing and do it with a fixed set of people is significant. Because of the rules, I could go deeper into the experience. I could observe something around me my phone would have caused me to miss.

Seems easy enough, right?

Creative Experiment to Try:

Schedule your own “I Am Here” day with a friend or a group of friends. Elect someone to curate the day’s events. Explore the art in a neighborhood you don’t normally visit. Come up with your own rules that facilitate total presence.

How to get into flow state by disappearing

Code: CRAFT

Currently reading — “Free Play: Improvisation in Life & Art” by Stephen Nachmanovitch

Reflecting back on my mini-essay at the top of this entry, I realized what happened: I completely disappeared. I was nothing but energy, laser-focused, unconsumed by nagging thoughts or bodily dysfunctions.

Stephen Nachmanovitch dedicates a chapter to this feeling of disappearing in his inspiring book “Free Play: Improvisation in Life & Art.”

He begins by saying, “For art to appear, we have to disappear.” He mentions the intense absorption children get as they play, fully concentrated. He says, “Mind and sense are arrested for a moment, fully in the experience. Nothing else exists.”

That’s how I felt speed walking down the forest trails, eyes attuned, hawk-like, looking for the next flower to pick. I was aware of my senses, but not really. It’s difficult to describe. Nachmanovitch bolsters this feeling by saying, “This lively and vigorous state of mind is the most favorable to the germination of original work of any kind.”

About disappearing, Nachmanovitch says:

The intensity of your focused concentration and involvement maintains and augments itself, your physical needs decrease, your gaze narrows, your sense of time stops. You feel alert and alive; effort becomes effortless. You lose yourself in your own voice, in the handling of your tools, in your feeling for the rules. The noun of self becomes a verb. This flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge.

I think that’s why I had the idea of the experiment with self-portraits. I let my guard down and allowed myself to disappear so an idea could appear.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Go on a walk. Keep a color in mind as you collect objects, like flowers. Let your attention and senses attune to your surroundings and your chosen color. Create something from what you find.

What do you really need?

Code: CLARITY

Currently reading — “No one’s ever taught you how to make your relationships awesome, so here goes” by Lewis Corse

I love it when someone can untangle the complexities of emotions and basic human needs and distill teachings into clear, concise insights. That always gives me more clarity, so I can focus on other things. Like creating.

Lewis Corse does just that in an article titled “No one’s ever taught you how to make your relationships awesome, so here goes.”

The premise goes like this: relationships fail when needs aren’t met. The work of maintaining healthy relationships is on you to figure out what you really need. That takes some soul-searching.

Corse says:

Needs are not:“Text me every hour,”“Never talk to other people,”“Always agree with me.” Those are strategies, demands, and control attempts. Needs are the basic things humans require to feel safe, connected and respected.

According to Corse, needs are supported by three factors: evolution, childhood, and identity. He includes this helpful list of Universal Basic Human Needs that you can refer to when you’re not sure what you need when you’re feeling a certain emotion. It says, “It can be used for study and for discovery about each person’s authentic experience.”

Creative Experiment to Try:

Bookmark the Universal Human Needs list. When you are unsure about an emotion you have, refer to the list. Complete this journal prompt: “What do I really need in this moment?”

Leaning into the numbness of pain to unlock creative energy

Code: CONDITION

Currently reading — “Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse” by Jackson MacKenzie

The book “Whole Again” by Jackson MacKenzie has helped me internalize a belief: you have to lean into the pain sometimes for it to evaporate. This takes time. But once you can fully feel emotions in your body that have been trapped by numbing agents, creativity can thrive again.

MacKenzie taught me more about core wounds and the Protective Self that is created out of survival to make sure that wound is never shown to anyone. The Protective Self feeds off external measures of worth that can dictate our actions and skew our motivations.

MacKenzie says, “You need to understand that numbness only occurs when there is an intolerable amount of pain: rejection, shame, guilt, self-loathing, self-doubt, and fear. Our bodies are built for survival, and at some point your body decided that these feelings were detrimental to your survival.”

He continues:

Allow the numbness to be there, and understand that it wouldn’t be there unless it was protecting you from extremely overwhelming stuff. That’s the key step toward working beyond numbness: understanding that it shot up as a defense to protect you, because you simply were not able to cope with the emotions at the time. Knowing that your body and spirit did these things for your body paradoxically helps you soften your body.

Allowing myself to feel the numbness has been groundbreaking for me as I recover from past traumas, one day at a time.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Once a week, set a timer for 20-30 minutes and allow yourself to feel parts of your body that have been numbed to protect you. Allow emotions to surface and welcome them, wishing them well.

I look up more often than I look down.

Yesterday, I had lunch with a group of friends—two painters, a musician, a writer, a filmmaker—at Juiced What You Need (a new cafe that gives off 90s spiritual aunt vibes). I had a nutritious meal. Every single one of my cells rejuvenated. The power of green juice, a Greek bowl with unprocessed ingredients, and a naturally flowing conversation. I was practically buzzing.

I felt like a flower drunk off the sun.

Speaking of flowers, I need to talk about something that is extremely important: the tulips blooming at the Dixon. After lunch, we weaved through the packed Dixon parking lots. I’ve never seen that many people there. The tulips are the stars of spring, and everybody wanted to see the show.

We were surrounded by color: glowing whites, deep reds, the hottest pink I’ve ever seen, blistering orange, every shade of green. The chatter of the tulip-goers, high off springtime, soaked into the sweetness of flower aroma.

I decided to take photos of the tulips using a technique I’ve been developing for over a year now. Ultra up-close photos, zoomed in to the max from my phone, that make objects into dreamy abstractions. It’s one way I develop my practice of close observation.

Coincidentally, just before I took the photos, my friend Olivia was telling us about a paper she was working on about James Baldwin for her MFA class. She told us about his relationship with painter Beauford Delaney. Delaney taught Baldwin how to “see,” to look closer at the details of life.

He told Baldwin to look into a puddle and observe all the different shades and shapes within it, things we all pass by frequently but never really notice. Baldwin said of Delaney: “The reality of his seeing caused me to begin to see.’’

I want to see as closely as possible. I want to promote looking closer.

When I was a kid, I used to imagine shrinking myself and living in a garden. It could have been my obsession with Fern Gully or a subconscious desire not to be seen. To be so small and enclosed in nature. I developed a rich imagination as I fantasized about living as a speck amongst the flowers.

Now, when I look closely, I still am that speck, unwilling to be ignorant of all the beauty that is always around.

In this week’s Creative Wellness Research Log Entry, I will talk about:

• Learning about people through their junk journals (Community)

• Looking closely at heartbreak like David Hockney (Craft)

• Mindfully breaking up with your cellphone (Clarity)

• Examining the “neuronal gossip” of the nervous system (Condition)

Put a little junk in your journal

Code: COMMUNITY

Currently doing — Facilitating the Junk Journal Jam

The Junk Journal Jam is quickly becoming the most popular Like Really Creative event series. In partnership with the Brooks Museum of Art, it typically draws in an average of 150 people who meet in the atrium, journals in tow.

I’ve been obsessed with journals since I was a kid and consider myself a collector. Every time I go on vacation, I buy a journal, knowing I will eventually fill it. With what, I never know. I have to keep journals with me all the time in case an idea hits me. I keep a journal on every surface in my apartment.

When I learned about junk journaling after it went viral on TikTok, I thought it’d be cool to do something like the Collage Party, but with journals. I pitched the idea to the Brooks, and they said yes. There’s a DJ to add a layer of energy.

Participants dig through all the ephemera and vintage magazines I bring, swapping what they find and sharing the weird stuff they find in old magazines (A LOT of weird things in those).

At the end of the Jam, I take photos of everybody with their creations. It’s always a peek inside somebody’s mind. When people who have never collaged before ask me what to do, I tell them that collaging is an exercise in following your natural desires as quickly as possible without overthinking why you chose that. It’s a way to turn off your inner critic and choose something for yourself, rather than what you think you should choose.

What excites you when you see it? What words draw you in? What do you find beautiful? What are your favorite colors? What emotions do you feel when you see an image in a magazine? How do you bring materials together into one piece?

What I love most is hearing things like, “I made a friend at the last Junk Journal Jam, and we decided to come to this one together,” which a regular told me this week.

Or: “I really needed this.”

Creative Experiment to Try:

Set up a collaborative junk journal with a friend or group of friends. Fill it with ephemera from your life without explaining. Insert photos, sketches, and ideas. Pass it off every month.

Learning how to look closely at loss like David Hockney

Code: CRAFT

Currently reading — “See What You’re Missing: New Ways of Looking at the World Through Art” by Will Gompertz

While reading “See What You’re Missing: New Ways of Looking at the World Through Art” by art journalist Will Gompertz, I learned two things about famed painter David Hockney: he’s gay, and he’s obsessed with looking closely at nature. Love that. Relatable.

Gompertz dissects one of my Hockey’s most famous paintings, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures). The standing man is modelled after Hockey’s ex-partner, Peter Schlesinger, who never actually stood at the pool, looking down at the submerged figure. Gompertz says, “The painting represents a collection of memories capturing the reality of a moment in an artist’s life when he parted from his lover. Months have been distilled into a single fabricated image that is disarmingly honest.”

Not gonna lie, I teared up a little reading that.

Gompertz goes on to say:

As with everything [Hockney] does, it is centered on his obsession with looking properly. He would use a camera to take dozens of photographs of the same person or object from every conceivable angle. He would scale ladders and crawl along the ground to make sure that he had seen everything.

There are so many angles to consider when capturing a heart-wrenching loss.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Find an object or a person. Using your phone or camera, take at least 20 photos of the same object or person from different angles. Print these photos out. Make a collage with the images.

Mindfully breaking up with your cellphone

Code: CLARITY

Currently reading — “How to Break Up with Your Phone” by Catherine Pierce

I’m not off my soapbox about the detriments of phones and social media on our collective creative energy. Mostly because I’m still learning how to not be so compulsive with both of them. I started off last week’s entry with a manifesto to kill our phones.

I started reading “How to Break Up with Your Phone” by Catherine Pierce because I want to take my phone addiction more seriously. Before she offers a 30-day phone break-up plan, she goes into detail about how phones affect our mental health, our attention, and our brains. It’s something we all know, but seeing it explained on paper, with quotes from tech CEOs saying they don’t let their kids use phones or social media, puts things into perspective.

Phones and social media were designed to encourage compulsive checking. The dopamine released when we see a new post, get an exciting text, or expect notifications after we post something further entrenches compulsivity. We begin to use our phones as ways to numb uncomfortable emotions: anxiety, boredom, grief, impatience.

Pierce talks about the importance of practicing mindfulness when you experience cravings to check your phone. She references a study that encourages cigarette smokers trying to quit to lean into their cravings with mindfulness rather than numbing them out.

Pierce says about using mindfulness to ease into cravings:

Paying deliberate attention to your moment-to-moment experience enables you to ‘tune in’ to your own life, helping you gain more experiences and memories that don’t involve your phone. It can help you deal with anxiety. It strengthens your relationships. It adds richness to your life.

As a former nicotine addict, I can say that quitting cigarettes and vaping was much easier than cutting down on screen time. That’s scary.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Get out a journal. Set a timer for 10 minutes. Ask yourself, “What uncomfortable emotions do I try to avoid? Why? How do I avoid them? How do they impact my creativity?” Write the answers to the question in a stream-of-consciousness style.

Examining the “neuronal gossip” of the nervous system

Code: CONDITION

Currently reading — “The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret & Science of Happiness” by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

It’s been fascinating reading about a Buddhist who is nerdily obsessed with how the body and the nervous system contribute to happiness.

In a chapter titled “Why Are We Unhappy?", Buddhist master and writer Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche talks about the science of attachment and how our desires for them distract us from achieving peace and intrinsic motivation, two factors I believe are important for creative wellness.

Basically, we humans spend a lot of energy and time—as conditioned by our histories, which affect nervous system regulation—averting things we fear. The pain of losing what we are attached to is too much for the body to handle. We get stressed out.

Rinpoche says that when we practice aversion, we are telling neuronal patterns that we are “limited, weak, and incomplete.” The “self” that we construct based on our attachments is threatened when met with potential dangers.

Rinpoche says:

Because anything that might undermine the independence of this mentally constructed ‘self’ is perceived as a threat, you unconsciously expend an enormous amount of energy on the lookout for potential dangers. Adrenaline rips through your body, your heart races, your muscles tense, and your lungs pump like mad. All these sensations are symptoms of stress.

My “self” generally is threatened by the lack of pleasure or not being validated. I don’t want to live a life where my energy is drained by neuronal gossip.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Go on YouTube and type in “progressive muscle relaxation meditation.” Practice this meditation every day for a week. Notice if your stress levels have decreased.

It might be my mental illness, but I absolutely should not let the transference of pixels upset me like this. Reality surrounds me at all times. I have to constantly remind myself to stop caring about digital interaction. Retraining my brain, after so many years of digital consumption, can be exhausting. I have to get myself out of the pit, though.

I have to transcend the illusion and be an active participant in reality. I get to see how green the trees are. I get to touch soft velvet whenever I want. My feet can rest in dirt. I have people around me that I can look into their faces and see the gleam of life in their eyes.

This is what actually gives me energy.

I’ve taken many breaks from social media, and when I do, I can feel my thoughts breathe. I am less anxious, less on edge, more creative. Original ideas pop up instead of using social media as an inspiration engine.

The innocent creativity of coding a MySpace layout and making glitter graphics died. Popular social media platforms—Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook—have shifted from personal expression to intense commodification driven solely by advertising dollars.

I found myself on a weirder side of creativity on social media last year: manufacturing a persona I thought I needed to advance my business. I was desperate to pursue my passion full-time. I did really cheesy stuff. I focused on likes and engagement, especially after I went viral on TikTok and a video reached over a million views. When a brand did something out of the norm, or something I thought was cool, I felt envy rising in me.

I often think: is it possible to be on social media without eventually criticising your worth? Are there people out there who can actually be on social media without having their mental health affected?

My gut says no. My gut says it was designed with some dark psychology in mind: to get us to post more, to push ourselves for an imaginary carrot, to please a mysterious algorithm as unpredictable as my uncle off his Risperdal. Why did I end up feeling forced to curate myself to game the algorithm? Why was I creating near-soulless content instead of intrinsically creating? Why does the dopamine rush of getting likes, reshares, story shares, and heart reactions feel so good until it starts to feel extremely bad?

Why am I frowning at a screen?

I would rather frown at reality. I would rather be seen for my flesh—and all the contradicting personality traits beneath it—not the pixels transmitted through a piece of glass from a video where I edited out all of my stuttering. That is not creativity. That is curation.

My phone kills my creativity. My phone disconnects me from my true self. My phone is blurring the lines of what’s real and what’s just a passing trend that seems earthshattering if I’m not part of it.

In reality, I get to decide, using my intuition, what has meaning, what moves me, and what inspires me to pursue a creative practice.

You can find reality if you can wiggle through the discomfort of being off your phone for a few hours. You don’t have to cold turkey screen time reduction. Start with 30 minutes a day of putting your phone away. Touch paper. Really feel the texture as your pen scratches across its surface. Pluck at a guitar. I’m this close to buying a wood flute.

You honor reality when you honor your creativity.

In reality, you find clarity.

In this week’s Creative Wellness Research Log Entry, I will talk about:

• Starting a support group for Community Builders (Community)

• The unique individuality of style (Craft)

• Taking a sound bath to purge blocked emotions (Clarity)

• Noting where you feel external measures of worth in your body (Condition)

Strengthening the community through speed portraits

Code: COMMUNITY

Currently doing — Facilitating the Speed Portrait Swap

On Monday, the roar of laughter swept me away as people drew each other for five minutes and swapped their sketches at the Like Really Creative MUSE: Speed Portrait Swap.

My friend Justin Williams brought the idea to me last summer. We tried out the concept at the Like Really Creative Retreat at Downing Hollow Farm and decided to repeat it because it was so much fun. It opened people up.

What I witnessed at the second Speed Portrait Swap—also led by Justin—changed me: all types of creatives (good drawers, bad drawers) looking at each other in silent intensity as they rapidly sketched each other in a short amount of time, eventually breaking the silence with bursts of laughter and affirmations when they showed each other the final product.

By the end of the game, each person had over 9 drawings of themselves from 9 different perspectives.

Meeting strangers and scrutinizing every detail of their faces is not a common societal norm. Outside of the context of portrait drawing, it can be weird. A fear of intimacy keeps us disconnected. We zoom out instead of putting a magnifying glass up to someone. The Speed Portrait Swap crosses those barriers and infuses a joyful inspection, celebrated with laughter.

According to my calculations, over 350 portraits were drawn that night using pencils, pens, markers, crayons, and Sharpies. No portrait was alike. Participants got to see themselves, lovingly and strangely, through the eyes of a total stranger.

As one participant said, “Someone captured by inner child. I’ll have to talk to my therapist about that.”

Also: nobody was on their phone the entire time.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Set up at a coffee shop with your favorite drawing tools. Put up a sign that says, “Free Portraits.” Draw whoever sits in front of you and gift them with your drawing.

Make your own Muse

Code: CRAFT

Currently reading — “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art” by Stephen Nachmanovitch

I feel like Stephen Nachmanovitch, author of “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art,” is one of my new muses.

Since I was a kid, I’ve always loved the idea of mystical beings—especially from the nine Greek Muses—whispering in my ear, drumming up some celestial inspiration, and allowing me to be a vessel. It’s very dramatic.

In college, I looked to my friends for inspiration. I cherry-picked stories they told me and infused them into short stories (with permission!) because I found them endlessly fascinating, as I was not yet ready to tell my own story.

Eventually, I was able to merge inspiration with my own intuition, a concept Nachmanovitch writes about.

He says:

Muses live not just in myth and legend, but in our day-to-day existence as well. We are free to invent our own muses as needed…The muse is the living voice, as each of us experiences it, of intuition. Intuition is a synaptic summation, our whole nervous system balancing and combining multivariate complexities in a single flash.

Some of my biggest muses are pop stars. Any time I hear a new Lana Del Rey song, I’m instantly inspired to want to make music.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Invent your own muse from scratch in a writing or drawing exercise. Give them features, a voice. Speak from their point of view. How do they talk to you? Give them a name.

How to measure if you are flourishing

Code: CLARITY

Currently reading — “A Brief History of Human Flourishing” by Katrina Harrmann

In an article for the Kacmarcik Center for Human Performance, Katrina Harrmann examines the broader concept of human flourishing, which has been around since Aristotle scratched his head in contemplation.

The great philosopher wrote in the Nicomachean Ethics that human flourishing requires people aiming for goodness that creates a ripple effect of positive, uplifting change.

Centuries later (in the 1990s), positive psychology—the study of what makes life worth it all—emerged when Dr. Carol Ryff found six factors that could contribute to flourishing: self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, life purpose, and personal growth.

A decade later, Dr. Martin Seligman developed the PERA model of flourishing, detailing the five aspects that “encourage a state of flourishing”: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments.

Harrmann says:

A person must tend to each of these aspects (positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments) in order to flourish: increasing positive emotions and engagement (with the world, work, and hobbies), developing deep relationships, and finding meaning and purpose in their existence by achieving goals using their talents.

By examining the current moment in my life, I seem to be flourishing. I generally have positive thoughts after years of therapy and spirituality; I’m extremely engaged with the community and my passions; I have deep, deep friendships; my work and art mean so much to me; I’m following my dreams and making them come true.

I’ve come a long way from that burnt-out kid who just wanted to create consistently.

Being able to take inventory of the aspects of my life that needed improvement helped me make the necessary changes to be more creative.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Get out a sheet of paper and do a Flourishing Audit. Answer these five questions: 1. What are the primary emotions I feel on a day-to-day basis? 2. How am I engaged with my work and community? 3. What is the status of my relationships? 4. What gives me meaning? 5. What are my most recent accomplishments, big or small?

Climbing your way out of a dopamine hole

Code: CONDITION

Currently watching — “How to Quickly Escape a Dopamine Hole” from Newel of Knowledge

As I mentioned at the beginning of this entry, I’ve been having a hard time staying off my phone.

I believe the distracting attachment to my phone is linked to a chemical dependency on dopamine, a neurotransmitter and hormone produced and released in the brain. Dopamine drives motivation, pleasure, and reward-seeking.

I’ve been dealing with cheap dopamine. Cheap pleasure. Refreshing my notifications to see who liked my post, swiping through Stories, not retaining anything as I scroll through the algorithm.

Speaking of the algorithm: YouTube suggested this video by Newel of Knowledge about getting out of dopamine holes. Not only is the presenter incredibly charming and soothing, but the video also gave me a clearer picture of how pleasure and pain affect the body and our attention.

With cheap pleasure comes a drained brain that makes us feel “flat, foggy, and fried.” To stop feeling so unmotivated and tired, we keep on chasing cheap pleasure until we find ourselves in a dopamine hole.

He talks about being in a dopamine hole for five days before he found a solution without forcing discipline or motivation on himself: “unplug from the sources of cheap pleasure and give your brain and body one to three days of time and space to recover and resensitize.”

He says:

The energy, the motivation, the zest for life, just seems to have disappeared, and now nothing feels fun anymore, does it? You are not broken. You’re just a bit overstimulated and in what’s called a ‘dopamine hole.’ Every time you flood your brain with quick spikes in pleasure, annoyingly, you’re also flooding it with longer-lasting spikes in pain. Every burst of pleasure must be paid back.”

Put the phone away. Free your mind. Free your body. Recharge.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Do not use your phone for one day. Do not watch TV or use your computer either. Be screen-free for just one day.

From the two workshops I’ve attended with Marcus so far, I’ve noticed a common thread: there is an exercise at the beginning that doesn’t reveal its meaning until later.

This time, Marcus asked us to make two separate lists. The first list was five people and situations called “Small Wrongs.” The example Marcus gave was his roommate, who always stole his soy milk without apologizing. For the second list, write down five people who committed “Large Wrongs.” This is stuff like your mom leaving you at the bus stop and never coming back to pick you up.

Through completing the 12 Steps in Alcoholics Anonymous, I’ve done a lot of work on forgiveness and recognizing how I was also part of the problem (this is done in Step 4 when you take a “fearless moral inventory”). However, there are still those Large Wrongs that always sting when they resurface in your memory.

We set our lists aside. I ate a sliver of a Kit Kat or two to calm my nerves. Through the workshop, we learned about epistolaries and invective poems. We learned about a “volta”—or turn—when the poem suddenly changes. For example, you start with levity, then it switches to dead seriousness in one cutting line.

Then, Marcus gave us two prompts:

1. Write a letter that you can never send or will send. It can be a brief essay in the form of a letter, a direct address, a wish.

2. Write an invective poem to someone who has committed a small or large wrong against you. As Marcus said, “Go Petty LaBelle or deadly serious.”

I combined the prompts and wrote an invective epistolary about a former therapist who manipulated me into joining a cult therapy group.

A Large Wrong, if you will.

Here’s what I wrote, and what made me shake as I read it aloud to the 12 writers in the room:

To My Ex-Therapist,

Do you still have your license? Do you wave sage over it or let it charge under the moon with your crystals? Could they fit the phrase “cult leader” under the long-winded jargon of “Clinical Mental Health Counselor”? Have you ever smoked weed before? If so, did you ask for help when it slugged your body down—or did you have eight strangers sit cross-legged on the carpet of a false prophet mill, have them look you in the eyes and tell you how bad you were for being a human in pain? When was the last time you ate so much McDonald’s that you had to force yourself to vomit so you could finally get some sleep? Did your therapist use this confession, this puking up of the guts, as the perfect time to reiterate how helpful this little casual counseling group would be to your binge eating disorder? Would you catch the clever manipulation or see it as a saving grace, a hope tossed to shaking hands? What did you think when you read the group contract? Did it give you pause? Did it seem a little dogmatic? Did you believe in the purpose regurgitated to you, that shame is the best medicine, as you watched eight people sign it, me, the ninth? Were you able to get the seat warmers in your Binz fixed? Are you less cold with lined pockets? Could you spare some change to foot the bill for a future client’s casket? Could you comfort a mourning mother?

Just typing that out makes my heart pound. I still have some processing work to do with this traumatic group therapy event, but I’m glad I’m embodied enough to know what’s going on.

For now, I’ll turn it into a thinly-veiled short story. I’m a writer, after all.

In this week’s Creative Wellness Research Log Entry, I will talk about:

• Starting a support group for Community Builders (Community)

• The unique individuality of style (Craft)

• Taking a sound bath to purge blocked emotions (Clarity)

• Noting where you feel external measures of worth in your body (Condition)

The loneliness and euphoria of community building

Code: COMMUNITY

Currently doing — Facilitating Community Builders Anonymous

I’ve been learning on the fly when it comes to community building.

In the last year, I’ve facilitated over 40 creative community events, making stuff up as I go. I’ve had several breakdowns. I’ve had crushing doubt and soaring euphoria. I’ve forgotten to eat before an event and gotten lightheaded at its end. I’ve probably gained significant muscle mass just lifting heavy boxes by myself (always lift with your knees, not your back).

I’ve made a community I’ve always wanted to be part of, but I rarely get to participate in the activities I facilitate.

Community building is hard. It’s a lot of work, and it can be lonely. Within about 5 or 6 months of starting Like Really Creative, I had the idea: there should be a support group for Community Builders. The challenges of building can be mounting if you don’t have a team, consistent support, changing trends, a low budget, or managing the stress of meeting the public’s expectations.

I sat on the idea until my friend Pam, co-founder of ShapeShifter Art School & Gallery, texted me about some similar challenges she’s experienced with community building. I told her about the idea for Community Builders Anonymous, and she graciously offered up a space in ShapeShifter to host the first meeting.

We had everyone from a director of a public arts nonprofit to the editor of an anti-AI magazine to a band leader and teacher to a facilitator of queer social events.

Some really cool ideas were shared, like a “generosity budget” that adds up the free items and services you give away every month suggested by the incredible Anna House who runs super thoughtful creativity workshops.

My friend Victor Sawyer, an amazing musician, teacher, and frequent LRC event attendee, came up with a memorable framework he calls the Three Ps. He uses the framework to narrow down which opportunities to take. As budding community builders with small budgets and a drive to take on as many opportunities to gain momentum, it can be hard to say no.

He said:

The Three Ps are Profit, Passion, and Professional Gain. For example, it pays well, or it’s something you love to do, or it can help further your career. If two out of those three levels aren’t high enough, it’s a no for me.

To close out the meeting, I asked everybody, “What is one thing you need help with in the coming month?” I heard things like survival, self-care, a videographer, time management, encouragement, a spiritual reminder.

My favorite answer: everything.

It was truly healing. As Victor said, “It was a collective sigh of relief.”

Creative Experiment to Try:

Come up with your own Three Ps to help you decide which projects you can say no to when you have too much on your plate. What’s your minimum profit level? What are the things you are passionate about that make work fun? What makes work not fun? What does professional gain look like for you?

The always ever-expanding improvisation of living

Code: CRAFT

Currently reading — “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art” by Stephen Nachmanovitch

There are some books I come across in my research where I have to force myself to stop highlighting every single sentence.

This is what’s been happening as I read the book “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art” by renowned musician Stephen Nachmanovitch.

In the chapter titled “The Vehicle,” he starts with a quote by Martha Graham that so perfectly encapsualtes what I’m trying to accomplish with Like Really Creative and my study of creative energy: “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.”

That quote just took my breath away. I could see myself using it as an epigraph in the book I’m writing about creative energy.

Nachmanovitch opens with this quote to illustrate how everyone’s use of creative energy comes with a uniquely individual style. He writes, “The minute particulars of body, speech, mind, and movement are what we call style, the vehicle through which self moves and manifests itself.”

We are the product of millions of factors that have led us to this exact moment, creating what we are creating. As I’m writing this, I am in dialogue with the past and the connectedness of everything before me.

Nachmanovtich says:

An improviser does not operate from a formless vacuum, but from three billion years of organic evolution; all that we were is encoded somewhere in us…As our playing, writing, speaking, drawing, or dancing unfolds, the inner, unconscious logic of our being begins to show through and mold the material.

That’s one thing that makes creativity so special and endlessly fascinating to me: nobody can ever create anything you make the exact way you make it.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Write a poem, a short story, or a mini-essay from the point of view of the beginning of time, seeing everything unfold before you in complete random beauty.

Metaphorically levitating during a sound bath

Code: CLARITY

Currently doing— Sound meditation with Tori Grace Anito

I’ve been struggling with the release of emotions that are stifled beneath layers of psych meds. I’ve talked with both my therapist and psychiatrist. They both agree that the current medication regimen I’m taking, while definitely keeping me stable, is making it difficult for me to break through and purge blocked emotions fully.

Switching up medications can be risky. I’ve been on this regimen for over a year now, and I’ve had positive results. I don’t feel sluggish or lifeless compared to the last regimen. I don’t want to fix what’s not broken, but it would be nice to have a gut-wrenching sob that doesn’t require a devastating event.

My therapist suggested a sound bath. A research study found that sound meditation with Tibetan singing bowls can reduce depression, tension, and anger.

From my own experience with sound baths, I always come out feeling lighter. Somehow, emotional muck dissolves into the ether. It feels like levitation almost.

From the study:

This was an observational study designed to examine the potential effects of a singing bowl meditation on mood, tension, anxiety, physical pain, and spiritual well-being. A significant difference was found in all endpoints examined in response to the meditation.

I signed up for a sound meditation experience with Tori Grace Anito at Mind Body Haus as soon as possible.

I met Tori last year, and let me tell you, she is an angel. I asked her to record a guided meditation to help clear up creative blocks. In one 25-minute take, she completely improvised an in-depth guided meditation that led you through doors of self-discovery. While playing sound bowls.

With that said, I plan on making it a regular monthly thing. I’ve been trying to find a consistent weekly sound bath in Memphis, but I’m coming up short.

Maybe I’ll make that my next hyperfixation. At least I’ll be calm doing it.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Go to Eventbrite, type in “sound bath,” and plan to attend one. Before you go in, write down what you are feeling. After, write down the results of your sound bath experience.

Locating external measures of worth in your body

Code: CONDITION

Currently reading — “Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse” by Jackson MacKenzie

Over the past six years—especially the last three—I’ve been learning the practice of unconditional love.

As a chronic people-pleaser and codependent, I’ve found myself in unsavory positions time and time again that cut deeper into my core wound of “I’m not worthy of love.”

That overarching belief has gotten in the way of my creativity in several uncountable ways that I might have to process through an essay. It’s one of the reasons I started reading “Whole Again” by Jackson Mackenzie, a book recommended to me by a fellow in a recovery program who has gone through some similar relationship trauma as I have. I actually called him in the middle of one of his cry sessions while he was listening to the book. Mackenzie’s words were touching a sensitive spot inside of him.

The main thesis of “Whole Again” sounds simple—feel. But for people like me who have felt so disconnected from their body from using several numbing agents, feeling things in your body can feel like an Olympic sport.

According to Mackenzie, one way we have difficulty feeling our emotions is by creating a “Protective Self.” It’s a layer of armor that protects our core wound.

The Protective Self is bolstered and fed with external measures of worth.

Mackenzie lists several external measures of worth; here are a few I highlighted for myself: accomplishing things, social media validation, validation-seeking, being overly “nice,” perfectionism, obsessing over those who wronged you, and analyzing people (and the self). He goes on to say that we need to investigate the underlying bodily sensations and make note of where they appear in the body.

He says:

The protective self wants you to “do.” I’m encouraging you to stop “doing” and instead sit with the deeply uncomfortable, frustrating sensations that arise when you don’t take action. To notice when that urge kicks in. And when we notice it, all we need to do is kindly decline what it wants us to do.

The Protective Self is insatiable if we let it be.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Make a list of three “External Measures of Worth.” Get three sheets of paper. Write one External Measure of Worth per piece of paper. On another sheet of paper, draw where you feel these on your body. Tear them all up. Make a collage from the scraps.

I was sold at the mention of writing something inspired by color.

Marcus asked us to pick three paint chips. I chose Deep Emerald, Copper Beech, and Starless Sky. Combined, they signified a beginning, middle, and end.

We talked about using cinematic imagery to put readers inside your writing and to give it motion, mixed with anaphora to make punchy statements. We read the poem “Anaphora as a Coping Mechanism” by Ocean Vuong (which made me misty-eyed as he recounts the birth and death of a relationship in reverse).

To add another layer, we read a micro-memoir by David Andrews called “Variations on a Home Depot Paint Sample.” Andrews uses the imperative voice, along with anaphora, to “mix” the paint sample colors as extended metaphors, taking us through the story of leaving home to live in Alabama and his uncertainty about his decision.

With our paint samples, we were asked to describe the colors as precisely as possible using cinematic energy. In four sentences. My heart started racing.

Then, we wrote a list of “associations, memories, places, people, moods, and ideas” for each paint chip. Combining all the elements we collected, we started by writing micro-memoirs, akin to Andrews's, in the imperative voice.

Here’s what I wrote for Deep Emerald:

To unclench your jaw, light the virgin tip of a sandalwood incense. Focus on the swirling teal, translucent and tendrilled in the creaking of pre-morning. You are awake. You just thanked God for another day. Night shrinks in its blue development as you drop into your sleep-stoned body and begin your stretches: reaching up to a speckled ceiling, blocking out the creeping light, bowing to relieve your back from ancestors’ sitting and waiting for something beautiful to happen. You wish you could sing an eloquent definition to them, but you are as silent as your morning routine. Now, you can carve out the quiet from the green shadow of solitude as you strain in downward dog, ready for that pose where you can finally rest your smile-stretched face on the ground. Solitude is a god. You pray for birds nesting for rest.

A story of grief was starting to form: the peace I had before a relationship (Deep Emerald), the unmooring energy I experienced while in the relationship (Copper Beech), and the blinking void after the end of a relationship (Starless Sky).

All these layers of inspiration led me to process grief, a topic I’ve been learning more about. I’ve always been perplexed by this emotion, unsure of what it even is and how to process it, which is why I started reading “Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief” by Joanne Caccitore.

In the chapter titled “Ritual and Artistic Expressions of Grief,” Cacciatore says, “Grief education is quintessential to shifting our culture’s antagonistic relationship to grief, and expressive, creative arts are an important part of this.”

So I say thank you to Marcus Wicker, Ocean Vuong, David Andrews, and Joanne Caccitore for inspiring me to shout back at grief the best way I know how.

In this week’s Creative Wellness Research Log Entry, I will talk about:

• Suffering for your art is so tired (Community)

• Inserting childlike play back into your creative process (Craft)

• Using poetry to find yourself in the present moment (Clarity)

• Feeling the freedom of movement without a scoring system (Condition)

Why suffering for your art is so tired

Code: COMMUNITY

Currently witness — An Artist Talk by Justin Williams

Last week, my buddy Justin Williams—painter and musician—gave his first art talk at the Brooks Museum, something he says he’s been waiting for his whole life, to be asked to talk about what inspires his work.

The talk centered around his first solo exhibition at Ugly Art Co. (a gallery that displays art from the Ugly Collective, which is how we met) titled “Stage,” comprised of 14 paintings depicting slice-of-life snapshots from the Memphis music scene. He delved into the through-line of all of his work: finding creative community.

Justin is community-oriented to his core. He’s a social butterfly that shows up and supports every corner of the Memphis creative scene—music, visual, and literary. I’ve learned a lot from Justin, who will just go up to a stranger and talk to them, something I’m still trying to practice in order to break out of my shyness. He’s unafraid of expressing vulnerability. He’s also an incredible active listener with a genuine curiosity about artists and their work.

Through the talk, he details his trials and errors of finding his people, while at the same time, honing his painting skills along with his musical chops. While trying to quit smoking. Eventually, he started hosting Writers in the Round at the Lamplighter. The people he met along the way influenced his passion for creative community that led to him showing up to music shows and events to sketch what he saw. The sketches turned into large acrylic paintings bursting with color.

You can tell through his work that community brings him joy.

My favorite thing he said:

I think the idea of “in order to do art, you have to suffer” is a very tired idea. I think doing art from a place that is generating joy is way better.

You suffer way less when you’re not alone.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Reach out to a creative friend and ask them: what brings you joy? Based on what they say, create a piece inspired by their joy.

Bringing back play into your work

Code: CRAFT

Currently reading — “The Rise of Play Among Youth Culture” by Gael Aitor from Grownkid

I stumbled across Grownkid—a social club for 18-24 year olds in New York that have hosting events like “Fight Your Toxic Situationship”—through the algorithm and became enamored with its philosophy: the meaning of life is play.

The co-founder Gail Aitor wrote a Substack piece dissecting the rise of play among Gen Z and Gen Alpha since 2018 through the Great Mental Health Crisis to the Loneliness Epidemic to the rise of Post-COVID Community and into a new counter-cultural movement—play-based gatherings that do not have a required outcome in order to experience joy.

He ties the Olympic-gold medal winning performance of Alysa Liu to his play-based philosophy. In her performance, he noticed that it was “seemingly the result of her dissolution of a result-orientated mindset and her embrace of a play-based one that led her to her first Olympic gold medal…The result didn’t matter to her; it was the process and the simple acts of fun, performance, and play that brought her joy.”

He goes on to say:

From a psychological and neuroscience perspective, play is a voluntary, intrinsically motivated activity where the process takes priority over the outcome, and it is one of the most critical mechanisms through which the developing brain wires itself for social competence, emotional regulation, creativity, and cognitive flexibility.

The more we can infuse play into our craft, we can dissolve this desperate need to meet some ambiguous standard.

These made-up standards can block what matters the most: the freedom of expression.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Go to a dollar store and head down the school supplies section. Pick out art supplies as if you are buying supplies for a Kindergartener’s art class. Implement these supplies to fight back against seriousness. For example, print out a spreadsheet, some kind of corporate marketing material, or a to-do list. Just scribble all over that shit.

Finding yourself in the present moment through poetry

Code: CLARITY

Currently reading — “The Before Picture” by Maggie Smith

I love poems that are meditations on time—the passing of time, the awareness that it’s always chugging along, and how we become part of its forward movement.

Every morning, I read one poem from Poetry Magazine. In the January/February 2026 edition, the first poem startled me into the present moment.

The poem by Maggie Smith titled “The Before Picture” goes like this:

It's complicated, my relationship status
with progress. I often prefer

the "before" picture. The future
is where I'm going only because

I have no choice, because time
moves in one direction, dragging

a bit of itself behind like meat.
An unseen hand keeps

tugging it—time's rabbit leg,
time's hunk of red venison—

just out of reach. Did I just describe
the future as bait? Am I strung

along? I know, when I arrive there,
it won't be there. Won't be that.

It'll be now, the way it is
right now. And again. Refresh,

refresh, refresh. The befores
pile up behind me. It's now again.

Maggie Smith’s poem showcases all of these worried questions that tend to pop up when faced with the unknowable future. The promise of the future can take us out of the present moment and create anxiety.

This anxiety that we bring onto ourselves can block the flow of being alive, right now. We can always bring ourselves back into the present moment by remembering that it’s always refreshing.

Refresh, refresh, refresh.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Write a poem about your relationship with time. How can you personify the future? What does the present moment look like to you in metaphorical language?

Moving toward the feeling of freedom

Code: CONDITION

Currently reading — “The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game” by C. Thi Nguyen

Game theory philosopher C. Thi Nguyen never pictured himself loving rock climbing.

In the opening of his book “The Score,” he starts off with a sentence that I did not see coming from a book about the philosophy of scoring systems: “Rock climbing saved me.”

I was hooked. I thought about how long sprawling walks and dancing saved me. Through movement, I was able to drop into my body, a foreign concept to me as I lived a sedentary lifestyle for most of my life until 2020.

Nguyen says, “Climbing demanded a deep understanding of how the parts of my body connected, of how a movement flowed through me.” He was used to only playing mental games like chess and strategy games.

When I got to understand my body, I got to understand how energy was generated. I understood that being embodied and moving was crucial for generating creative output and the flow of ideas.

In a quote that sums up previous topics I’ve explored in the log—finding joy in community, play without a scoring system, being present—Nguyen fell in love with how the movement and microscopic adjustments of rock climbing felt to him.

He says:

I came back from climbing weekends cheerful, refreshed. Climbing made me feel complete. And here’s the strangest thing: What I truly loved was a feeling, a loving involvement with the difficult of the physical world, that went far beyond the simple goals of climbing.

Being embodied is more than just the physical movement. You have to be able to feel what’s in your body through a natural focused presence.

Who knows, you might come out of it feeling cheerful and refreshed like Nguyen.

Creative Experiment to Try:

This week, try to find cheer in the “difficulty of the physical world” by getting out of your comfort zone and trying a new form of movement. Keep track of how you feel after. Compose this feeling into a piece of art.

It means “reason for being.” Simple, yet so mind-boggling with how to narrow down your life’s purposes.

Erica handed out a beautifully illustrated multi-Venn diagram with four main circles to fill in: what you love, what you are good at, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs.

In overlapping circles: your passion, your mission, your profession, your vocation.

After we filled out each circle, we shared things we had written. I heard things like wanting to be a death doula, a passion for coding apps to help navigate public transit, wanting to work on a barge, the desire to help queer youth of color, wanting to be a professional mediator, and wanting to showcase art from all over the world to bridge the gap between cultures.

The most magical part—after we shared our Ikigais, the floor was open to share ideas on how we could all help each other bring our “reason for being” to fruition. One person knew someone who had a death doula; they would get them in contact with each other. Event ideas were thrown out in abundance. Spaces were offered up.

The energy of the 13 or so participants was buzzing, so much so that we created a group chat called “Ikigroup” to continue helping each other fulfill our purpose.

This newsletter is a smaller part of one of my Ikigais. One of my missions is to promote creative wellness and to keep creatives connected to their creative energy—especially through writing, my first intrinsic passion I was born with. I’ve thought a lot about my purpose over the last few years. Yesterday’s process just helped me narrow it down even more.

My Ikigais: Creative Energy Coach, Creativity Book Publisher, Creativity Consultant, and Creative Director for Artists (mainly pop stars).

The more I learn about creative wellness, the more I am on my path. I can surrender to knowing it’s all gonna work out if I keep my eye on these north stars.

In this week’s Creative Wellness Research Log Entry, I will talk about:

• Why you should stop being a “chill host” (Community)

• Creating art as a mirror of what you’re going through in life (Craft)

• Feeling empathy for raisins through a meditation (Clarity)

• Stories about bodies of knowledge as told by Gloria Steinem (Condition)

Stop being a “chill host”

Code: COMMUNITY

Currently reading — The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

Priya Parker does not hold back in her book, The Art of Gathering. As a professional facilitator, she’s worked across hundreds of sectors and gathering types in order to bring back meaning and flow to gatherings to make them suck less. Because let’s be honest, some gatherings suck.

This week I read her treatise on how being a “chill host” is “selfishness disguised as kindness.” Oof. Hard pill to swallow for those of us (me) who think being chill makes us more likable and let’s us off the hook for responsibilities.

Parker mentions an essay by Alana Massey called “Against Chill” that defines being chill as a “laid-back attitude, an absence of neurosis” that “presides over the funeral of reasonable expectations.” Double oof.

I don’t like to tell people what to do. I think that comes from my distrust of authority. I don’t like to be told what to do. A lot of my events are centered around the idea of free exploration, but I do think I could benefit from being less fearful of being a more active host.

Parker says:

The chill approach to hosting is all too often about hosts attempting to wriggle out of the burden of hosting. In gatherings, once your guests have chosen to come into your kingdom, they want to be governed—gently, respectfully, and well. When you fail to govern, you may be elevating how you want them to perceive you over how you want the gathering to go for them. Often, chill is you caring about you masquerading as you caring about them.

She brings up the idea of “generous authority.” It’s a way to save your guests from the “chaos and anxiety” that can be stirred up.

One simple way to practice generous authority: connecting guests to one another. You can make people more comfortable and connect people based on their common interests.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Host a dinner party or craft circle with people who wouldn’t typically meet together. Facilitate an activity where people write three passions on a notecard in order to find common interests and match guests together.

Translating life lessons through art

Code: CRAFT

Currently witnessing — “How to Capture the Process of Surrender on Film” — An Interview with Rodney Ellis

I had the pleasure to interview photographer and filmmaker Rodney Ellis on the Like Really Creative Show. I met through Rodney through Ugly Art Co., an art collective we are both part of. I was drawn to Rodney’s gritty slice-of-life work, and as I got to talk to him, I found out more about what drives his creative process.

Rodney is the first to admit that he has not had any technical training. That’s my favorite kind of artist. Rodney learns through trial and error, soaking up every little detail from films he watches, letting his subjects in his films and photography take the lead on how they express themselves. He’s always in the process of trying to figure out what his signature “shot” is as a filmmaker. For example: chase scene shots, trunk scenes, crowd scenes.

His work is a distillation and metaphor for what he’s currently going through. In his film “God’s Son,” he was inspired by what his mother always tells him: “Sometime’s you just gotta release.”

Rodney says:

It was this surrendering thing. This was the whole theme of [God’s Son]. If you don’t surrender, eventually you’re going to die on your own sword. And that’s what happened to the character at the end. That was something I was learning in my own life at that time. And what’s what I learned what art is. I’m still learning art.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Think of a recent hardship or life lesson you are struggling to learn. Translate your experience into a central image, like Rodney’s “sword.” Create a piece of art with this image.

Speculating the history of raisins

Code: CLARITY

Currently doing — Raisin Meditation by Jon Palouse

I never thought I’d be feeling empathy over a raisin, tearing up over its history.

In this meditation by mindfulness teacher Jon Palouse, you are asked to mindfully eat a raisin. Very slowly. Very very slowly. For 10 minutes. You swish it around in your mouth, absorbing the texture and flavor

What I did not expect was Palouse to ask us to delve into the history of this raisin. Where did this raisin come from? What kind of soil was it in? How did this raisin get to you, in this exact moment? How does this raisin connect to every thing in the entire universe?

Palouse says:

The raisin didn’t always exist as a raisin. It used to be a grape. And that grape needed certain things in order for it to survive and grow…It got picked by a laborer, who took it and put it maybe in some cardboard box, and left it out to dry. And then it had to be put into a container that you found at the grocery store. There’s so much that went in to getting this raisin to you here, now—the grocery store, the clerk, who you purchased it from when you got it off the shelf, and now here it is, in your hand, this one small raisin. Everything is in this raisin. The sun, the sky, the rain. In a way, it’s not separate from those things.”

He goes on to say that one of the lessons to gain from mindfulness is to “discover that everything is connected.”

Damn. We are ALL the raisin.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Find a prized possession of yours, something gifted to you or you found. Examine this object closely. Get some paper and write all the things that went into you having this item in your possession. Speculate the item’s history.

The mess of Margaret Mead

Code: CONDITION

Currently reading — “Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem” by Gloria Steinem

It’s hard to describe how life-changing the book “Revolutions from Within” by Gloria Steinem is to me. It’s changed my whole worldview. The book—Gloria Steinem’s only self-help book—helps us to untangle ourselves from the patriarchal drive that wrings out our self-esteem.

In the chapter titled “Bodies of Knowledge,” Steinem investigates how the policing of our bodies and the miseducation of the mind-body connection stem from old ideas that keep us trapped from fully engaging with this connection, how it’s an energetic exchange that is undervalued in Western dualism thought.

She explores ways to deepen this connection through breath, touch, sexuality, physical imagery, and moving in space.

Steinem brings up four parables of how four individuals were able to honor the wisdom of their bodies—three of them grew up not being allowed or taught to honor their body and one—anthropologist Margaret Mead—who had the privilege of being fully embodied from childhood.

In the first parable, she details a story about a writer, who—plot twist—is Ronald Reagan’s daughter who did not feel allowed to explore physical strength.

Steinem says, “For women to enjoy physical strength is a collective revolution. For Patti, overcoming the feelings of weakness and body-fear that had put her at such a disadvantage as a little girl with a punishing mother and a distant father was the beginning of inner strength, too.”

Once Patti was fully embodied, her writing practice soared.

After showing examples of limitations, Steinem examines—through Margaret Mead—the possibilities of what can happen if individuals are allowed a “whole-body, all-five-senses upbringing.”

During childhood, Mead was encouraged by everyone around her to “explore the world around her in every way she or they could imagine.”

She says:

Diverse toys and physical challenges, colors and textures, music, art, and perhaps most important, permission to get dirty and make a mess—all these were part of Margaret’s preschool life.

Margaret’s mind-body connection gave her deep insights into the human condition that led to groundbreaking work in anthropology from child-rearing to the relationship between culture and personality. Her friend Jean Houston said of her, “Dualisms were discouraged; she was trained to accept the unity of mind and body, thinking and feeling.”

While we obviously can’t go back in time and change the limits from our childhood, we have the present moment to honor that mind-body connection by making a giant mess.

Creative Experiment to Try:

Make a giant mess. Get outside, lay a tarp down, and get some tactile items: paint, clay, dirt, charcoal, fabric. Get a surface to make a mess on. Play energetic music and move intuitively, switching between tactile items. Fling stuff around. Go wild.