how I work and why

Creativity keeps the world alive, yet, everyday we are asked to be ashamed of honoring it, wanting to live our lives as artists. i’ve carried the shame of being a ‘creative’ since i came to the planet; have been asked to be something different, more, less my whole life. thank spirit, my wisdom is deeper than my shame, and i listened to who i was. i want to say to all the creatives who have been taught to believe who you are is not enough for this world, taught that a life of art will amount to nothing, know that who we are, and what we do is life. when we create, we are creating the world. remember this, and commit.

— Nayyirah Waheed

No matter what it is I’m doing to earn money, no matter what my daily schedule looks like, no matter what’s taking up the majority of my time and energy - if you ask me what I am, I will say, I am an artist.

It’s a little bit of a loaded word, isn’t it?

Culture has taught us that only special people are allowed to claim that name - artists have talent - meet a narrow set of criteria - make money from their creations. Someone is an artist if they hit a certain set of metrics, set forth by an established hierarchal structure.

It can be difficult for some, particularly those who identify as women - or other than straight cis men - to name ourselves artist - as if it doesn’t belong to us, as if we must earn the name somehow, prove our worth.

But of course, this is all just an invented system of control.

You are an artists if you are an artist.

You know in your heart, in your soul, if this is what you are.

You owe nothing to anyone. There’s not one thing you need to prove.

So, I am an artist and have always been an artist. This is not a badge of accomplishment or worth. It is simply my essence. It is how I am made, how I perceive and navigate the world.

When I am in the act of creation, I am flowing in the eternal.

When I make art, I remember who I really am and why I am here.

You might think of the word art as synonymous with painting or drawing, but there is so much more to art than that.

Each artist discovers their medium -their way -and this way, like all of life, is in a constant state of flux and evolution. New doors are always opening, new pathways unfolding.

When I think about how I make art, I see my work as expressed through four primary pathways.

I Write

This is fundamental. The impulse to write lives deep within my bones. It’s something I’ve always done. Way before I knew the alphabet, I scribbled line after line on legal pads.

As a child, I stapled paper together to create little books, which I wrote and illustrated.

I grew up in books, reading and writing.

I have many works in progress and a great deal of frustration around a couple of projects that I just can’t seem to complete.

However, even when I perceive myself as being blocked as a writer, I continue to write. I publish blog posts like this one. I make ebooks. I journal.

I love words; words are a natural and familiar landscape to me.

I Paint

When I think about being in pre-school, I think about standing at the easel with a brush full of tempera paint.

As long as I have strung words together on a page, I have moved paint.

Even though I spent many years of my life removed from the canvas, denying my impulses to paint, when I came back to it, I made up for lost time.

I can’t imagine how I stayed alive without painting, it’s so crucial to my well being.

I Flow Energy

Writing and painting are fairly acceptable in mainstream society.

When you tell someone you write or paint, you’re not usually met with concerns that you are in consort with the devil.

Of course, individual works of art and well known artists are often condemned, but in general, people don’t say, the fiction writing muse is actually a masquerading demon!

When it comes to the second two mediums in which I work, however, things get a little strange - at least in public perception.

The first of these is energy.

From the minute I started learning about the energy field and the chakra system - from the first Reiki class - I knew that I was moving in the world of energy healing in a creative way.

I used to tell my Reiki clients - I practice Reiki but not exactly.

It took me a while to realize that it was okay for me to make energy work, just like any art form, my own. I have my own voice as an energy healer.

I’ve very recently discovered a shape for this work in the form of energy prayer. I love flowing energy in this way. It’s Love moving through me.

And I promise you, there’s nothing demonic about it.

Like all art, these energy prayers can’t really be explained but are meant to be felt.

I Listen to the Subtle Realms

Perhaps the most maligned and misunderstood way that I work is in intuition.

But there is nothing demonic, evil, unloving, or anti-Christian about perceiving the subtle realms.

The amount of fear floating out there in the world around this subject astounds me.

The fact that some people feel justified in saying to other people, about anything - Oh you know that part of you that is as naturally a part of you as breathing? Yeah, that’s evil.

Without getting into a whole discussion about it - this irrational fear is based in colonialism and misogyny and I have no use for it. None.

Your energy body and your psychic abilities are just as much a real aspect of you as your physical body.

The ability to sense the subtle realms is a natural and beautiful ability.

The tarot (or their more contemporary counterpart, oracle cards), much like astrology, is a language. It’s an art from. It’s soul-gazing. It’s deep, loving communication.

And that, really, is what all of art is.

Art allows us to communicate that which defies explanation or definition.

Art allows us to connect on a universal soul level.

When we experience art, we are in oneness. Think of the universal language of music, for instance.

Our cultural differences and language barriers fall away when we listen to music together.

Art heals.

Which is to say, it brings wholeness.

If you express yourself creatively, there’s going to be someone somewhere who doesn’t like it.

They might be uncomfortable with the art itself; they might be uncomfortable with the fact that you are making art in the first place.

Art can illicit passionate reactions because it tells the truth.

Art shines a light on the shadows; it is unapologetically honest.

There’s a reason authoritarian governments imprison and murder artists.

Art has always been a way for people to speak the truth of existence to one another.

Artists are free.

Oh sure, they might be tortured, a little bit crazy. They might have a dark turn of mind. But they are free, they live outside expected or dictated thought and behavior, and this can be triggering for a lot of people.

I am exquisitely aware of when and how and where my work makes others feel uncomfortable.

When I cross a boundary or go into strange territory, I know that I am doing it.

I am aware that because my work is varied in its expression, there are some people who would like for me to stick to one thing and turn away from another, but to do so would be dishonest.

Being a human is a journey of wholeness and I don’t see the point of creative expression that seeks approval.

Creative expression, by it very nature, is at least from time to time, going to turn over some stones and cause some friction.

Even when it’s peaceful, loving, and pursued in the name of healing.

I have chosen to make my work public.

I could dance around in maxi dresses moving energy on my own time and no one would ever know. I could paint and never show anyone the paintings. I could meditate and journal with the tarot and never say a peep about it, but if I did that, the work would be incomplete.

Art is about the artists but it is also about the receiver. It is about that place in space where the creator and receiver meet.

The work that I do is all tangled up with my other obsessions - God, spirituality, wellness, the metaphysical, healing.

I paint prayers. I could just paint my own prayers, but I prefer to paint yours. I prefer for my art to also be an offering, I wish for it to be in service to the divine, I want to be in communion with you in a way that feels harmonious to my true self.

Art isn’t just about expression.

It is also about discovery.

And when the creator of the art and the receiver of the art meet in that mysterious sacred space, there is a sort of alchemy that empowers them both.

Perhaps art is scary because it is empowering.

The function of art is not always to be beautiful.

Maybe one of the functions of art is to widen our perspective so that we can redefine and re-understand beauty.

Maybe art exists so that we can feel ourselves as beautiful, even in our messy ugliness; feel ourselves as a part of the whole; shoot ourselves like a rocket into the night sky; understand why we are in these bodies, on this earth; honor the fragility and magic of our existence.

Maybe art exists so that God can experience themselves here.

Maybe art exists because it is pleasurable.

That alone would be enough.