Everyday Creative People

“Being stuck is an important part of the creative process – every great creative advance has been preceded by being stuck. And it’s staying with that, and then suddenly you see it differently. You discover that… there are different forces at play here than what I thought, and there are different barriers, and some of the barriers that I was fighting against, they don’t even exist! They’re just a construct.” Roger Nierenberg is a conductor who has enjoyed long tenures as Music Director of both The Jacksonville Symphony (Florida) and the Stamford Symphony (Connecticut). His conducting work has brought him to the podium of The London Philharmonic, The Residentie Orkest, The New Zealand Symphony, The National Symphony, and the symphony orchestras of cities across the US, and he has collaborated with musicians from more than one hundred orchestras around the world. Roger is also the creator of The Music Paradigm, an interactive learning experience that brings teams into the orchestra rehearsal process to discover critical lessons about leadership and teamwork. Participants are seated directly amongst the orchestra musicians where they gain fresh understandings about the opportunities and challenges faced by their own organization. Over the past twenty years, Nierenberg has presented to hundreds of different organizations, from civic groups to Fortune 500 companies, in two dozen different countries. The lessons and experience of The Music Paradigm are shared in a narrative account through the book, Maestro: A Surprising Story about Leading By Listening. To follow Roger, you can find him on Twitter @rogernierenberg or on Facebook at The Music Paradigm.

This week I got to interview a dear friend and a true renaissance soul, Kristin Richardson Jordan, about her work as a social justice poet and in particular her most recent book of poetry, Water and Light: Choose Love Now. Kristin is a book printing poet, writer, teaching artist, whose work is driven by an activist spirit. She grew up in the historically black neighborhood of Harlem, New York, and draws a great source of inspiration from the deep roots of activism, community, and artistic excellence in this community. She is the daughter of two physicians who worked extremely hard and overcame great obstacles to become minority physicians and who strive to serve their communities and help those underserved and underrepresented in health and science. Kristin graduated from Brown University in 2009 with a BA in Black Studies (“Africana”) and Literary Arts. To learn more about Kristin and her work, you can check out her websites below: * kristinrichardsonjordan.com: Kristin’s personal website* Pensup.com: the home of Kristin’s publishing company for “literary activists”

Photo credit: Stéphan Ballard Kofi Oduro is a creative coder, creative engineer, thinker, poet, and performer living in Montreal, Quebec (my new hometown!). In this week’s episode, we take a dive into computer science and finding creative fulfillment when you’re also a math geek. Kofi fills me in on the intersections of live coding, video, AI, spoken word poetry, music, and “algoraves,” an event where people dance to music created by algorithms. Turns out, math is at the foundation of pretty much everything we do. Kofi uses Videography, Poetry and Creative Coding, to highlight the realms of the human performance and the human mind in social, internal, or even biological scenarios which we face in our everyday lives. You can check out his work at kofioduro.myportfolio.com and follow him on Instagram at Illest Preacha.

Ben Falcon paints custom bicycles, motorcycles, and more. Having felt constrained by the opportunities available to him as an architecture student, Ben sought out something that would enable him to do more hands-on work. He found it in custom painting. In this week’s episode, Ben and I discuss how he stumbled upon this niche career, what he would do if he weren’t doing custom painting, and what it’s like to run a custom paint business in New York City. Ben has worked with some of the finest bicycle frame builders in the world. After fine tuning his trade at the leading purveyors of custom at Seven Cycles outside of Boston, he moved out west to establish the state of the art wet paint department for Chris King in Portland, OR before ultimately landing in Brooklyn, NY, where he is currently devoting his talents to the paint enterprise at the Brooklyn-based Horse Cycles Paint. To learn more about Ben’s work and follow along with his projects, check out benfalcon.com and find him on Instagram @benfalconpaint.

This week I caught up with Vessna Scheff, an emotive, abstract painter and musician living in Philadelphia. Vessna has the attitude of a perpetual student, and has jumped into her creative pursuits more than once with little to no formal training! In this episode, Vessna shares her incredible journey to becoming a working artist, and the attitudes, approaches, and beautiful moments of magic that got her there. Vessna combines sounds, movement and color to create encompassing performances. Her work is inspired by stories of social and personal revolution and resilience, and seeks to fully celebrate the small yet powerful moments of freedom we experience within struggles. Utilizing water as a main tool of creation and source of inspiration, Scheff energizes large brushstrokes and mixed media to add depth and dimension to her works on paper. On stage, she merges sounds with colors in an empowering and colorful musical and visual performance. To learn more about Vessna, see her paintings, and follow along with her work, you can visit her website vessnascheff.com, or follow her on Instagram @vessnascheff.

This week I chatted with artist, educator, consultant and coach Stephanie Simpson about the interplay between stress and creativity, and how to nourish and draw on the power of our full human selves. Drawing on her background in movement, meditation, and psychology, Stephanie guides people to achieve their greatest potential by nurturing the connection between the mind, body, and spirit. With a focus on helping people find their true balance and align with their authentic selves, Stephanie empowers them to live their lives unapologetically and to the fullest. An RYT-200 Hour Certified Yoga Instructor, Stephanie holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from Emerson College and an MFA in Dance Performance/Choreography from Smith College. She is currently an MA degree candidate at Columbia University Teachers College in the Clinical Psychology program with an emphasis in Spirituality, Mind, Body and a focus in Organizational Change. Stephanie presents and consults for businesses nationwide, bringing her expertise and passion for helping people thrive to audiences and organizations seeking to realize their fullest potential. Most recently, she launched her 21 Day Stress Management Program to help people redefine how they respond to stress. It comes with a cool guide to help you learn all kinds of stress management techniques that harness your creativity, awaken your body, and more! You can learn more about her work at stephanie-simpson.com, and follow her on Facebook (Stephanie Simpson Coaching) or Instagram (Stephanie.e.Simpson).

“Leaning into a beginners mindset is really helpful for me. I have some [internal] stories that I need to be great at everything, and a lot of times that keeps me from leaning into creativity where I can just be curious about what I’m capable of. Not only in seeing what that first version is and almost how bad it is – because I do have a sense of taste, and can tell like, wow what I just made really isn’t great – but also being able to say, ‘If I practice this, if I really lean into doing this… I can see where that can head, where that can lead.'” Todd Emaus is an executive coach and organizational consultant, working with founders and leaders as they seek to scale their organizations without losing their soul. He’s founded startups, raised venture capital, and burnt out in the process. All of these have been powerful teachers for supporting leaders in his work today. In this episode, Todd and I talked about the role of play, connection, and belonging in business and in life. You can learn more about Todd and his work at toddemaus.com, and follow him on Twitter @ToddEmaus.

Heather Kirtland and Marissa Huber are two artists and mothers, who happen to be the dynamic duo behind the Instagram community Carve Out Time for Art and blog by the same name (COTFA for short). The goal of COTFA is to cultivate a positive and nurturing community for creatives who want to find time to satisfy this part of their identity – a perfect match for Everyday Creative People! Some of the things we talked about included: * The power of self talk and the importance of choosing to claim your own creative identity * How motherhood impacted both Heather and Marissa as artists* How to make art amidst a busy life, even (especially) if you don’t have a dedicated space to do it in Marissa founded Carve Out Time for Art in 2015 after the frustration of being told she’d never have time to create once she had children. She didn’t want to give up on her own dreams and felt being a mother made her a better artist. She set off to interview women who were making it work, and unintentionally created a community of artists. She teamed up with Heather Kirtland that same year to start writing a book on artist mothers, and they became partners in writing and in creative shenanigans for their COTFA community. Marissa Huber is an artist, writer, designer, connector, and mother who lives in South Florida with her husband and two children. By day, she uses her interior design background as an Occupancy Planner, where she plays Tetris with space and is a friendly hostage negotiator for offices. You can visit her at marissahuber.com or follow her on Instagram and Pinterest, both @marissahuber. Heather Kirtland currently teaches encaustic workshops and is focused on her own studio practice. She was awarded The Maryland State Arts Council Grant and was a resident artist at The Holt Center. Her work has been exhibited throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, abroad in Italy and Wales, and in Modern Home and Country Living UK magazines.  Heather recently moved from Baltimore to a more rural part of Maryland where she lives with her husband and two children and Luna their rescue dog.  When she is not painting she loves to read, run and encourage other mothers to find a creative outlet through Carve Out Time for Art. You can check her out at heatherkirtland.com or on Instagram @heatherkirtland.

“I never thought of myself as being creative. But at a certain point I needed to tell stories out loud on stage. And part of that was because some of the social justice work I was doing, I felt people needed to change something more than their logic about things. You know, racism is illogical, but I felt like we had to get beyond that, that you couldn’t rationalize it. And also that emotionally, some people just feel different things along those lines. And so my storytelling was a way for me to put something out there that was rational in thought, but also had emotion and could move the spirit and that’s where I hit on it: that being artistic means you touch people’s spirit. And so I started to come to terms at like, oh, maybe I am creative, maybe I am artistic, because I want to move and touch people’s spirit.” Rosita Choy has spent her career of more than two and a half decades dedicated to social justice nonprofit work, with an emphasis on immigrant rights, racial equity, and anti-poverty. She’s been on staff for organizations such as the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, American Friends Service Committee, and Amnesty International. Rosita is now an independent consultant and coach helping to promote healthy and sustainable organizations and work cultures. She specializes in burn-out prevention and recovery. She is also a public storyteller who performs on stage as “Una China Latina,” spinning tales about growing up immigrant and Chinese in Chicano L.A. To learn more about Rosita and follow her work, you can check out her website RositaChoy.com, or follow her on Facebook. If you’re in the DC area you can also attend her upcoming workshop on April 9th titled “Enduring Idealism: A Workshop on Surviving Nonprofits.”

“I’ve worked with kids all my life, but when I became a mother myself, I realized how babies, that’s the first thing they do before they even talk, you know, they just play and tinker. And that’s how they understand the world and how they learn. And then as, we grow older, play is our favorite way of coming up with new ideas, and… play often becomes social. So you start playing with others. And it’s a key way, actually, for us to develop empathy, and connect with the people who we play with. Because the thing that happens with play is that, when you’re playing, you’re in what we call this ‘magic circle.’ So it’s this invisible boundary set by the rules of the play and you’re present, you’re connected, you’re equalized, you’re kind of ready to listen and learn from each other.” Chloe Varelidi is the founder of humans who play, a new design firm with offices in Washington and (soon Nairobi) that uses play as a force for good. Prior to starting her own practice she was part of the early teams at the Institute of Play, Quest to Learn, the Mozilla Foundation and littleBits where as a play designer she launched everything from top rated apps, to franchise products for Marvel & Disney, to a public school featured on the cover of the NYT Magazine. Chloe has won multiple awards for her work along the way, including some from ISTE, TOTY (toy of the year) and Common Sense Media. She is recognized as one of the GOOD100 for shaping the world in meaningful and creative ways and frequently lectures about harnessing play as a force for innovation and doing good. Chloe is an Adjunct Professor at The Corcoran School of Art & Design where she teaches Interaction Design. To learn more about Chloe and her work, check out her website humans who play and follow her on Instagram at @humanswhoplay. You can also view some of her previous work at varelidi.com.

Steve Lucin is a creative entrepreneur who helps passionate visionaries bring in more cash to their businesses through creativity. Lucin pulls his technical design, motion graphics, and entrepreneurial skills from running his own entertainment and nightlife creative business, Halucinated Design, Inc. He was the VRFX supervisor at Michael Bay’s 451 Media, where he oversaw the creation of VR/360 (Virtual Reality) content from creative to post-production. He also animated many of the original 451 motion comics.Since then he has decided to pursue his personal mission in life, which is to uplift his community through creativity and to show people that life should be spent enjoying themselves, exploring, and learning. He does so by developing passionate individuals in his community through the nonprofit that he is building, Support Creativity. His third brand, Legacy Greek, focuses on strategy, branding, and marketing for community-driven fraternities and sororities. At night he likes to animate and mix video live to electronic dance music as a VJ. He has performed visuals at NYC nightclubs such as House of Yes, Verboten (now Schimanski), Space Ibiza NY, Cielo, Jump Into The Light VR Play Lab, and Electric Zoo Festival.

Katie Visco, who has been called a “bubbly and offbeat running, biking, soup-making, people-loving, community-building exclamation mark,” loves peoples’ stories, healthy and delicious food, traveling, and human-powered adventures. In 2009, promoting the importance of a bold and passion-driven life, Katie ran solo across America, from Boston to San Diego, and became the 2nd youngest and 13th woman overall to make the crossing. During, and the year after her transAmerican crossing, she raised funds for the charity, Girls on the Run, and also stopped to visit more than two hundred audiences en route to spread her message to young and old alike. Running has been a versatile cornerstone of her wellbeing for years, and she especially loves the trails! Katie also has 10+ years of experience as a community-builder and entrepreneur. She has started eight businesses and campaigns, and is currently the proud owner and soup maestra behind Hot Love Soup, a soup and bone broth delivery company in both Austin, Texas and Missoula, Montana. She hails from Glen Ellyn, IL, a suburb of Chicago, and is a 2007 Economics graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Visco lives and works to see courage, community, and true connection happen in this world. Besides trail running, biking, creating delicious food, and traveling, Katie loves her husband and family very much and enjoys getting to hear the stories of others. She’s been writing since she was six and hopes to publish a book one day. She’s stoked to share her journeys with you in hopes that you will glean something special from them for your own growth and joy!

“I believe that as we’re being creative, sometimes we really have to practice creativity, as opposed to wait for creativity. And I found that that’s such a powerful practice for me when I’m working with young people, because part of my job is to hear terrible things all the time. And to make those things playable. And it’s really, really hard. It’s really hard and scary to play with things that you don’t think you can play with. And in drama therapy, and in developmental transformations, we are talking about, how do I play with grief? How do I play with death? How do I play with sexual assault? How do I play with domestic violence? And I want to be clear, when I say the word play, that I’m not saying, this isn’t mocking, and I’m not making fun of people with these things. I really mean, how can I help loosen some of this trauma that gets locked in our bodies? And how can I do that, using the dramatic medium?” Rebecca is a mental health therapist specializing in working with adolescents and adults with trauma of all kinds. A former singer and actor, Rebecca found her way to drama therapy through her first degree in Drama Education. When she’s not pretending to be an anaconda or a ninja, Rebecca enjoys weightlifting, yoga, and hanging out with her puppies and birds. Yes, people who keep birds as pets are odd. She knows. Someday Rebecca will get a PhD to study trauma and play. Also someday, she’ll go back to writing short plays. Until then, she’ll keep building spaceships while being forced to finish her math homework (for pretend). To learn more about Rebecca and follow her work, you can check out her website (and soon-to-be blog and podcast) at therapyaltered.com, follow her on Instagram at TheMentalAthlete and TherapyAltered, or shoot her an email at rebecca.davis@me.com.

“Creativity goes hand in hand with emotional intelligence. The more self aware we are, the more we practice self awareness and empathy and all these things, the more we’re able to be resilient, the more we’re able to unleash that creativity inside of us. A lot of times in our workshops, we get people that say, oh, we’re not creative, or, you know, I’m just not a creative person, and they have a lot of what we call limiting beliefs about themselves. And oftentimes, after going through our workshops, they’re like, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize I had that in me! I didn’t realize I could be creative, I didn’t realize I already am creative. I just didn’t know that!’ And so, you know, it’s just amazing to see the amount of creativity that is unleashed as people work on their emotional intelligence skills.” Saleema Vellani is the Co-Founder and COO of Innovazing, an education and leadership development firm that strives to help organizations cultivate more impactful leaders. Innovazing uses emotional intelligence tools and techniques, based on neuroscience, in its highly customized programs for social enterprises, nonprofits, higher education, Fortune 500 companies, and government agencies. Aside from launching 5 fast-growing ventures across 4 countries, she has also provided consulting for over 12 years to a wide spectrum of organizations.  Saleema is passionate about empowering the developing world through technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Earlier in her career, Saleema co-founded a nonprofit language school in Brazil, which is currently the nation’s top-rated and largest Portuguese school. Recently, Saleema co-led an award-winning, groundbreaking study at the World Bank on how existing climate-smart food production technologies, such as hydroponics and aquaponics, can be adapted and simplified to tackle food insecurity while increasing livelihoods for refugees and engaging the private sector in water-scarce countries. Saleema teaches Entrepreneurship at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and is a faculty member of Mavasive Leadership Institute. She also co-leads the World Bank Group’s largest and most inclusive mentoring program for the Youth-2-Youth Community and is the Career Advisory Networks Co-Chair of SWAN, the SAIS Women’s Alumni Network.  Saleema has spent her life between Canada, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Italy, and the USA and is fluent in five languages.

At long last, Everyday Creative People has returned for a second season! Here’s my brief introduction to set the stage for what’s to come. Stay tuned for the first interview, coming next Monday!

“I literally spend hours just staring at my glasswork or my worktable, and think: ‘Ok I’m gonna give it up.’ And then my husband always says, ‘Just go down there and work, go and try this, get in there and immerse yourself.’ You know, I struggle all the time. That’s part of it: it’s pain and pleasure. Pain, pleasure, and definitely passion. And sometimes the pain is worse than the pleasure is, or sometimes the pleasure of something coming out… is wonderful. And, you know, I think that they come in waves, and you gotta ride some waves harder than the others.” Anita Merina, educator and children’s literacy advocate turned glass artist, talks about glass working as a form of magic. When working with glass, she says, there are so many surprises and possibilities that, “you become like the magician, the scientist, the mad scientist…” After 28 years in the education and editorial field and leading the National Education Association’s Read Across America program, Anita Merina picked up glassworking about 10 years ago. She is now following her longtime dream to be an artist with glass as her medium. She is the owner and creative mind behind AMerinaGlassworks and partner with Katherine Thomas in DC Glass Artists. To learn more about Anita and her work, follow her on Facebook at AmerinaGlassworks or on Instagram at Merinaglasswork. Some themes from our conversation include: * The surprising nature of glass * The importance of play * Finding your own unique way in your art form * Finding mentors * Connecting to your heritage through art * Passing on a spirit of creativity and resilience to others

“The more that I show up for myself and therefore am able to show up for others, it just, gets me into my purpose, and why I’m here. I think that when we do that, we’re able to feel more joy, and when we feel more joy, we’re able to reap the benefits of that joy. And when we’re in our happiness and our joy, we’re able to just think more clearly, and we’re more inspired, and we’re more open to the possibilities of life and recreating ourselves… I feel like I’ve opened this door of limitless possibility, that I went from someone that was like, yeah I like to dance, yeah I like healing, and, sometimes I do it, but I’ll also settle for working as an assistant at this architecture firm… doing these things that are kinda wasting my time in a way because I kept myself limited. Joy opened this pathway and now I’m overwhelmed with my dreams, I’m overwhelmed with possibility….” Tatiana Zamir is a choreographer, dance instructor, performing artist and holistic healer. Tatiana earned her BFA at UCLA in the World Arts & Cultures Department with an emphasis on dance. She continued her studies in holistic body therapy at the Institute of Psycho-Structural Balancing, also in California, where she honed her skills in the healing arts and integrative approaches to wellness. A unique, movement therapy-based practice for healing and upliftment evolved naturally. Groups and individuals in the US, Southeast Asia and Southern Africa have benefitted from Tatiana’s Radiant Healing Breakthrough Workshops — which teach use of the body as a vehicle in overcoming challenges and achieving one’s highest destiny. From these workshops to her inclusive Afro Hip-Hop dance classes and performance art pieces Tatiana proves herself to be a compassionate, outside-the-box creator of dynamic, expansive, empowering and joyful experiences that catalyze transformation. To learn more or engage with Tatiana and her community, check out her website TatianaZamir.com or follow her on Instagram at @TatianaZamir.

Alexandra Zsigmond spent 7 years doing art direction for the New York Times’ Opinion section before deciding to refocus her energy on personal creative pursuits. In this week’s conversation we chat about her “dream job” as an Art Director and her current process of creative recovery. Alexandra is an award-winning art director and visual thinker working at the intersection of fine art, illustration and editorial design. Her core interest lies in the use of metaphor and symbolism in visual art, as a tool to represent complex ideas and visualize the invisible realms of mind, thought, and emotion. Since writing her honors thesis on visual metaphor at Stanford University in 2004, she has explored this interest through multiple roles and media: as art director, curator, and designer of metaphoric imagery for newspapers, books and exhibitions. She has collaborated with a roster of over 1000 artists worldwide and art directed over 4000 editorial illustrations. She is known for greatly expanding the range of visual contributors to the Times, drawing equally from the worlds of contemporary illustration, fine art, animation, and comics. To follow her adventures and see some of her creative work, follow Alexandra on Instagram @zsigmonda.

“I am of an immigrant family. So this is what we were taught: ‘This is, you know, America is the land of opportunity, and this is what you must do in order to become successful.’ So, if this is what has been taught to each one of us, then me pursuing art was something very risky, and in that risk, and I think even behind the scenes, you know behind the Instagram photo that I would put up, there was a lot of that sacrifice, and struggle… My family and close friends saw that most. So I did get a lot of like, ‘Well, why don’t you try to look for another job in the meantime and do this on the side?’ And I was like, ‘No, that’s not what I want to do. I can’t do that, because, then, I feel like I’ve wasted all these years, and that’s only going to take me away from it further.’ So it was a lot of resisting on both ends… Like, ‘You’re crazy, you’re ridiculous for doing this,’ but also, ‘No, I need to do this or I’m crazy for not doing it.’” Natalia, aka Naty, is an Argentine-born, NYC native creative free spirit. She is a henna artist, fine artist, muralist, graphic designer & photographer. Naty has been practicing the art of henna since 2009. She has a Bachelors Degree in Graphic Design with a fine art focus. She has participated in events & parties in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Florida, Art Basel, Las Vegas, Denver, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Burning Man, Cuba & Costa Rica Her passion, expressed through all of her arts, is to build up & empower humanity through connection & unity. Much of her inspiration comes from the four elements of nature due to their reflected similarities within people. She hopes to bridge culture gaps by embracing, educating & demonstrating that henna is for everyone. You can check out Naty’s work on her websites hennabynaty.com and natybynature.com, her Etsy store: Naty by Nature, or on Instagram and Facebook @natybynature. Themes:  * Loss as a catalyst for reclaiming your creative voice * Making use of the tools at your disposal to boost yourself to where you want to be * Making the leap from full time to freelance * Defining “career” on your own terms * The importance of overcoming the fear of asking questions

“The idea that the arts need to be something separate from your socially engaged life, or your community-based life, its really been created by institutions and it isn’t true. Every community… has been using the arts and creativity to thrive, since forever.” Rebecca Kelly-Golfman is a facilitator, entrepreneur, theatre artist, and activist. She has spent her entire career figuring out how to integrate the arts and advocacy/activism work, and helping others to learn how to do this too. Rebecca is a true Renaissance Soul/Multi-potentialite, cobbling together a variety of different activities to build a life and career that really feeds her soul. Amongst her various activities, Rebecca is the Founder of Black Abundance BK, a platform celebrating Black life in Brooklyn through uplifting Black businesses, creators, activists, and community members. As an Adjunct Professor at Wagner College, she was awarded The Diversity and International Action Council Award for Diversity and Inclusion for her course Race, the Arts, and Activism.  She also devises plays with anti-gun violence youth organizers in Crown Heights through Theatre of the Oppressed NYC. Additionally, Rebecca is a former civil rights attorney where she focused on dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline as Associate Counsel with The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington DC. She was recently selected as part of the 2018 Create Change Fellow cohort with The Laundromat Project, and is co-creating a socially engaged art project in Brooklyn with STooPS Bed-Stuy.   You can learn more about Rebecca’s work at rebeccakellyg.com and blackabundancebk.com and follow her on Instagram at @rebeccakelly_g and @blackabundancebk.   Some themes from our conversation: * Learning to accept various artist identities outside of a formalized/externally recognized space * Getting self judgement out of the way * The natural synergy of arts and activism * A (very) brief history of the arts being used as a form of rebellion/resistance by African people enslaved in the US

“I’m at the point where a gig is not just a gig anymore. I have to ask myself, am I getting so caught up in the ‘paying the bills’ jobs, or am I making time for what really energizes me? It’s a constant tight rope.” Hilary Sutton is a writer, speaker, consultant, coach, and sometimes actor. She runs HSL Enterprises where she helps people spend their days in work that is wildly fulfilling. Five years ago Hilary started a blog at hilarysutton.com to explore social media, creativity, personal development, and writing. Shortly after, she launched HSL Enterprises Courses to provide workshop-style teaching around concepts that had grown popular on her blog. She is the author of an ecourse, three workshops, and two eBooks including More in Less: 21 Productivity Hacks for Creatives, Blogging: Grow Your Business with Content, Going Freelance: How to Launch, Market, and Build Your Creative Career, Get Your Dream Off the Ground, and Art of the Side Hustle: How to Supplement Your Creative Career. As a writer, Hilary is often tapped for feature writing, content marketing, and direct response copy. Hilary has worked with clients ranging from Broadway shows, to nonprofits large and small, creatives of all stripes, and consumer brands. She is a contributor to USA Today where she writes about careers. You can follow Hilary @hilarysutton (facebook & twitter) or @hilary.sutton (instagram). Highlights from this week’s episode: * Making tough decisions about what is worth your time and energy, creatively * Learning how to approach paid opportunities without letting desperation get in your way

Tomislav “Tom” Benzon taught himself how to play guitar in high school, winning his first band competition only two weeks after forming the band, at a time when Tom himself knew only a few chords. The audacity and sheer determination behind this win is a theme seen over and over again, throughout Tom’s career, which spans 25 years as a full time touring musician. A dynamic personality, Tom has organically lived his life by the principles behind “The Secret” since long before he even knew it was a thing with a name. He has played around the world with musicians like Jack Savoretti and Jooles Holland, and performed in films with the likes of Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. A few years ago, however, a motorcycle accident in the UK stopped Tom in his tracks. The long recovery process was a huge blow, forcing Tom to step back from his career. Now based in San Diego, California, he is working to regain his footing. Some themes from this episode:  * “The Secret” and the idea that “If you want to try, go all the way.” * Picking yourself up after a big setback * The importance of good friends who can remind you who you truly are in dark hours * Why building genuine connections with others is a smart career move 

What does it look like to have a healthy creative career that brings together a wide variety of different mediums and practices under one umbrella? I think Miriam Castillo gives us a pretty good picture of success with a portfolio of careers. As a visual designer and illustrator who also teaches yoga, paints murals, designs a line of yoga pants and makes vegan cheese (who knows what project may crop up next?), Miriam is going all out in pursuing whatever creative projects come her way. If you’re in New York on April 21st, check out Miriam’s next event, Wild Nature: Creativity, Imagination, and Freedom. Miriam Castillo is based in New York and Valladolid, in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Her whimsical hand-drawn illustrations explore the world through both fantasy and the proximity to Nature. Finding a path in mixed media, Miriam is an artist that pushes the creative boundaries of her craft. She is an antiquarian, fascinated by mysticism, and draws inspiration from her journey as a yoga instructor. Yoga has bestowed her with a new invigorating source of creativity. Yogis’ connection with Nature, gives them a deeper wisdom and understanding of their own bodies. As such, she spends much of her life observing the natural world and exploring its intersection with the creation of art.   Highlights from today’s episode: * “Hiring yourself” when you don’t know where your work is going to come from next * What is the separation between work and life? When you’re doing so many different projects that you’re so passionate about, is there a division?  * Our innate creative capacity and the childlike freedom that comes from creative practice * Supporting people to tap into their creative centers – where creativity lives in our body.  You can learn more about Miriam on her website, miriamcastillo.com, and follow her on Instagram at miriamcastilloart and @miriamcastillodesign.

What is your reason for creating? Majella Mark was raised by artist-activist parents who instilled a strong sense of social justice in her from a young age, and this has been a clear driving force behind her own creative ventures. By day, Majella is an analytics professional in New York City, creating performance analysis and strategic planning for major television networks such as Spike TV, NBC and ESPN under the tech company TiVo. By night, she organizes a variety of arts-oriented social justice and community activities such as Perception Theatre (a monthly film discussion series focused on cultivating empathy) and Baha’i Millenials, a blog about spirituality and her journey in the Baha’i faith. In this episode, we discuss: * Immigrant parents and the heightened pressure to choose a “practical” career * The data behind what kinds of perspectives get represented in our media * How open-source media has enabled minority identities to get more representation * Exploring social justice topics through the arts * What it means to be a womanist (as opposed to a feminist) Majella Mark is a native Connecticut resident born to immigrant parents who came to the United States as artists from the Caribbean island of Grenada. She graduated from UCONN with a degree in Media and Society Studies focusing her individual major on the influence media has on cultures and vice versa. She also earned an MBA degree in International Business at the European Business School of London. As a data story creator and progressive tech enthusiast with years of experience in advertising and marketing, she has worked for major corporations such as Turner Broadcasting and The Weather Channel.  In addition to the links provided above, you can learn more about Majella on her website, majellamark.com and follow her on Instagram @bahaimillennials and @majmark.

This week’s guest is practicing creativity in a slightly different way from many of the folks on this podcast so far. Erica Soultanian is a co-founder of Mission Collaborative, a DC-based organization that helps professionals design careers they love through workshops and immersive programming. Erica was inspired to co-create Mission Collaborative after struggling through a career change herself and realizing that there aren’t many resources or support organization to help professionals change careers once they graduate college. Erica also works at DC’s Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development where she helps grow DC’s private sector economy and entrepreneurial community. In her free time, Erica organizes Startup Weekend events in DC, which help bring new startups to life through 54-hour intensive weekend experiences. Some of the highlights from our conversation: * Being an entrepreneur while working a 9-5 * The ups and downs of entrepreneurship * Dealing with the fear of failure * How to know when it’s time to take the leap 

“It’s a very weird job because you do all this work, and your whole life is engulfed in the show that you’re working on and every bit of attention to detail, and most of the people who come to the show have no idea that you exist… Most people know there’s carpenters, or there’s lighting people – but they don’t understand that there is somebody, who’s like a mystery person, that brings all of this together, and for some reason that attracted me. I want to be this person that does all this coordinating to bring everybody together to be able to create something every night, and I don’t need an applause.” This week I chatted with Caroline Watters, a Stage Manager for the innovative international circus arts company Cirque du Soleil. Caroline is currently touring Asia while stage managing on TORUK – The First Flight. Originally from Toronto, Caroline became attracted to the unexpected art of stage management while still in high school and received her BFA in Performance Production from Ryerson University in Toronto. The stage manager’s art is often hidden, beyond the sight or awareness of the audience, but ultimately there is a high potential for creativity on the grand scale of a live performance, and this is what drew Caroline to the work. After Ryerson, Caroline went on to obtain her MFA in Stage Management from Columbia University. While working in New York, her Broadway dream shifted to more immersive and complex productions, and shortly after graduation, she accepted an internship with Cirque du Soleil which lead to working as an Assistant Stage Manager on Zumanity. After the experience in Las Vegas, she joined the Cirque du Soleil touring production of Varekai as a Stage Manager, which lead her to joining the stage management team of TORUK. Cirque du Soleil has provided the scale and complexity that she has desired for stage managing; her final Masters thesis covered all aspects of Cirque du Soleil Stage Management. Themes from this episode include:  * The creativity of a stage manager – making the magic happen behind the curtain * Creativity in the context of a multi-national for-profit company * The rewards of being in a job that constantly puts you outside your comfort zone * Self care practice

“Once I left college, I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And I think for a lot of “former dancers” that becomes an issue, because when you’ve put every fibre of your being into your art form since whenever you started – at 3, 5, 13, or whatever – ballet is all-encompassing in a way that can be compared to training to become a professional athlete, or a professional musician. It takes up everything in you mentally, physically, emotionally and beyond. So when you lose that part of your identity, in a way it’s really hard to recalibrate… College becomes a buffer in a way, and when you exit that scene it can be hard to really figure out who you are, and there isn’t really a whole lot of time to do it because everyone around you is going to med school or law school or doing banking… and you’re kind of grappling with who you were, who you are and who you want to be.” Claudia Schreier is a choreographer who has been commissioned by organizations including the Vail Dance Festival, New York Choreographic Institute, and Joffrey Winning Works and has upcoming commissions with Ballet Hispánico and Dance Theatre of Harlem. But there was a time before all these accolades when she was working 9 to 5 in arts management, and finding time to create ballet on the side.  Claudia and I met in 2015 when my choir, Tapestry, sang behind Claudia’s dancers for her piece Vigil (which you can watch here!). It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever had the privilege of helping to create. This was also one of the pieces that helped Claudia to launch her choreography career. Since 2015, Claudia Schreier & Company has presented several evening-length performances of her choreography and in 2017 made its Joyce Theater debut, featuring dancers from New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Miami City Ballet, and other leading companies.  In today’s episode, Claudia and I chatted about how she became a professional choreographer and where her work has come in the last few years. A few key themes that came up in our conversation were: The importance of academic pursuits to balance artistic pursuits. The benefits (and necessity) of working in arts management while building your artistic career Learning how to take care of yourself while giving 110% to your art when the work starts to pick up. Ms. Schreier serves as Ballet Master and Rehearsal Associate to Damian Woetzel and has contributed to The Kennedy Center Honors and programs at the White House, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and New York City Center. She is the recipient of the 2017 Virginia B. Toulmin Fellowship at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU and the 2017 Lotos Foundation Prize, and she received a B.A. from Harvard University in 2008. To learn more about Claudia you can check out her website, claudiaschreier.com, and follow her on Facebook at Claudia Schreier Choreography or on Instagram @claudiaschreier.

“It’s kind of like falling in love, you know? it’s like, oh my god this is the person! And then you go through all the difficult moments and you remember that first moment and you’re like, ok, this is worth working on because I felt very strongly about this at one point. And it’s kind of the same way with art – it’s like there’s so many hurdles, and some things are not going the way as planned, but I kind of think back to my original inspiration moment and I think, it’s my duty to this inspiration, to give birth to it.” Natasha May Platt took a bit of an unusual route into the world of fashion – via a Religion and Philosophy major at Harvard. After graduating from college, Natasha spent three years in India training and working in embroidery design under designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee. She currently works in embroidery design for New York luxury brands.  An artist and designer based in New York, when she’s not working in her dayjob, Natasha paints indoor and outdoor murals, inspired by beauty, spirituality, and the natural world. Her murals can be found across the five boroughs of New York, as well as in India and Bali. The rich textile and craft traditions of India have deeply influenced her art.   Some of the themes discussed in today’s episode include: persistence, learning to separate the merit of your work from its suitability for a particular job,  the value of practicing multiple different kinds of art and doing “art for fun” outside of paid work, and deciding when to take the leap and leave your day job. Natasha is preparing her first solo show of textile art that will open in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in May 2018. To learn more about Natasha and view her work, you can check out her website, natashamayplatt.com, and follow her on Instagram @surfaceofbeauty.

“When you look at Thai cuisine and even Taiwanese cuisine, the use of things like the offcuts of meat and stuff like that, it’s like ok, this is literally something that most of the world will throw away. How do you make it delicious? And how do you make it so that you can sustain not only yourself but your family? And so some of the things that people come up with is absolutely amazing.” Ben Blum is a chef who spent most of the first 8.5 years of his life in Taiwan, a country whose approach to food is an amalgam of different styles – Japanese, Chinese, and Portuguese – with a rainforest climate. That’s where his love of food began. Later in life, Ben spent a year working in the kitchen at a school in Thailand before attending culinary school at Johnson and Wales in Providence, Rhode Island. He traveled to Australia to work with Ben Shewry at Attica and most recently worked at Commis in Oakland, California.  In this week’s episode, Ben and I discuss the complexity of “humble food” and the power of constraints in the creative process, seeking out strong mentors, and giving it everything you’ve got. To learn more about Ben and his latest project, chocolate company Sans Wolf, you can visit his website, sanswolf.com or follow him on Instagram at sanswolf_chocolates.   

“I needed to know that it wasn’t going to somehow be a failure if I tried this thing where there was no guarantee of success… if simply the attempt to do something would be seen as enough of a good thing, whether it led to any future in that subject or not. I knew that I would regret it one day if I hadn’t tried going down that path.” This week I caught up with Clare McNamara, a Boston-based oratorio soloist, choral artist, and chamber musician.  Clare, who initially intended to pursue a more “practical” career in engineering before switching gears to follow her heart, has been praised for her “lushly evocative” and “otherworldly” performances. She will be performing with Lorelei Ensemble in the world premier of “The_Oper&” at Duke University on March 8-10th, 2018 (visit her website for details). Some highlights from this episode include: * Choosing to pursue an artistic career over all “practical” considerations (5:30) * Redefining failure (14:50) * Learning to own your abilities and managing Imposter Syndrome (35:54) * Being an artist as someone who performs work that was created by someone else. (42:00) Clare’s ensemble affiliations include Skylark Vocal Ensemble, Lorelei Ensemble, Cut Circle, Handel+Haydn Society, and the Boston Camerata. After making her New York debut as the alto soloist in St. Thomas Fifth Avenue’s 2017 performance of Handel’s Messiah, Clare makes her Boston Symphony Hall soloist debut in the Handel+Haydn Society’s 2018 performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor. International festival credits include Laus Polyphoniae (Antwerp, Belgium), Tage Alter Musik Regensburg (Germany), and the Tenebrae Holy Week Festival (London, England). Recordings of Clare’s voice also accompany the modern dance troupe Pilobolus in their acclaimed piece “On the Nature of Things.” Almost an engineer, Clare’s very first job was at NASA. She holds an A.B. in Music from Princeton University and an M.M. in Early Music Performance from the Longy School of Music of Bard College. To learn more about Clare and see the full schedule of her upcoming performances, you can visit her website at claremcnamara.com.

Join me as I chat with Grammy-nominated songwriter Anousheh about what happens when a major illness upends your life, evolving expectations after a big success, day jobs that capitalize on your creative strengths, and much more.  Anousheh has captivated audiences both overseas and in her hometown of Richmond, Virginia with her epic melodies. Drawing early influences from some of her 90’s music idols like Tori Amos, Bjork, and Radiohead, her songwriting style has always been rooted in introspection and metaphor. As an adult, Anousheh’s love of pop music, hip hop and indie rock has focused her songwriting into hook-driven, thoughtful pop songs– and in line with artists like Tove Lo, Ellie Goulding and Halsey. To learn more about Anousheh and her work, you can visit her website, http://www.anousheh.com/, or follow her on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at Anousheh Music. 

This week’s guest is J.M., a fellow theatre kid from my college years.  Today, J.M. is a physicist and the author of the political webcomic Doomed To Repeat it. They have always enjoyed drawing and cartooning and harbors a deep love of political and historical analysis. This is not J.M.’s first bout with mixing creativity and analytical thinking as they have degrees in Theatre and Physics from Mary Washington College. JM also loves Rugby and truly terrible young adult fiction novels. J.M. lives in Northern Virginia with their wife, Becky, two young kids, and two slightly annoyed cats. In today’s episode, we discuss themes such as making time for art with two kids and a full time job, discovering the intersections and balance between science and the arts, making creative work on a deadline, and more.  You can check out J.M.’s work at doomedtorepeatit.net, on the Facebook page Doomed to Repeat It, or follow them on Twitter @doomed_2_repeat. 

At the age of 7, Eric Harper was struck dumb by a piece of music he heard playing on the radio – and he immediately knew that he would do anything if he could figure out how to give people that same feeling.  In today’s episode, Eric gets real about the sacrifices he has made and lessons he’s learned along the way to becoming a successful professional musician. Award Winning Flamenco Guitarist Eric Harper creates not only a unique sound all his own but his music is melodically entrancing, virtuosically ferocious and harmonically soul-stirring to the core. Among other achievements Eric has also co-scored Kevin Spacey’s movie entitled “Inseparable”, worked closely with amazing people such as The Office’s Rainn Wilson and has over 80 TV show credits to his name. To learn more about Eric and hear some of his music, you can check out his website, ericharpermusic.com or follow him on his Youtube channel.

This week I spoke with creative catalyst and painter Lisa Hanash, about embracing your artist self and becoming ok with imperfection. From a young age, Lisa has always appreciated the beauty around her. From her trip to Europe in 2012 to the bottom of her street in the Lachine neighborhood of Montreal, Lisa would wait to capture moments on her camera. After graduating from university in 2014, the places that inspired her once through a lens became her inspiration to paint on canvas. After rummaging through her grandmother’s basement and finding old canvas, palettes, art books, watercolors, and old paintbrushes, Lisa had her base to start a new journey. Her hope is that, as she feels greater liberation from her limitations, that others would find the courage to do the same in whatever expression they have. Her vision is to see a city with a renewed sense of hope, inspiration, and transformation. You can find Lisa’s work on her website lisahanash.wix.com/artbylisa or on Facebook at Lisa Hanash Art. Photo credit: Bree Elizabeth.

Multi-dimensional LA-based artist, writer, composer, and performer Justin Sky, is not afraid to try his hand at whatever new creative medium will best serve his purpose. In my conversation with Justin I found him to be deeply spiritual – we talked a lot about opening yourself up to the creator within and allowing the art to just flow out of you. He has followed his instincts to great success, with doors practically falling open for him along the way. Justin uses his craft to push his audience to reflect and navigate our many realities. Distinguished first-place emcee of the Dub Magazine Street-Level Hip Hop Competition, International recurring main-stage performer at Festival Azure (Portugal), and emcee of tour de force Los-Angeles super-group The West Coast Get Down; Justin Sky is no stranger to the big stage. A consummate writer, Sky released his book There’s Comfort in The Darkness with Over the Edge Books in October 2016. A meditation on life’s most vital quandaries, There’s Comfort in the Darkness was accompanied by visual and musical installments marrying such themes in expert fashion. Having performed with such musical talents as Mickey Factz, Kamasi Washington, Ill Camille, Miles Mosley and Thundercat, Sky has also maintained local (LA) and distant (Puerto Rico) performing residencies. Justin Sky recently released his highly anticipated debut EP, EDEN, on December 1st, 2017. For more info on Justin and his work, visit JustinSky.com

Michael Burgos is an internationally acclaimed writer and performer. His one-person show, The Eulogy, is a six-time internationally award-winning comedic play and has been performed nearly 150 times in 25 cities worldwide. He holds a Diplôme from École Philippe Gaulier and a B.A. in Theater from George Mason University, where he received the Chris Parsons Acting Award, the Greenspring Players Scholarship, and the Outstanding Achievement in the Major Award. He has taught theater with Acting For Young People since 2010 and has written and directed over twenty short plays for children. In this episode, Michael and I talk about working on the business side of music versus the artistic side of music, following the creative bug from one art form to another, learning to listen to your body, the magic of walking through open doors, and more. Visit TheEulogyPlay.com or find him on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date with Michael’s work!

Cat Francis is a singer/songwriter and musician from Brooklyn, New York. At a very young age she expressed a passion for poetry writing, arts, religion, and philosophy – publishing her first poem at age 11. Her love for writing led her to learn how to play the acoustic guitar, and piano. In 2015 she released her first all-acoustic EP ‘Saint Francis: Finding Faith.’ This EP has received rave reviews, including some notable attention by AFROPUNK. Since the release, Cat had her first child and became a birth Coach, or Doula. These new changes infused Cat with new inspiration for her music and manifested a new jazz and Neo-Soul inspired sound. In 2017 Cat Francis has joined forces with a Brooklyn based band “Bell Shows” Cat Francis continues to make more music and works diligently to release new music reflecting her evolution as an artist. Cat Francis’ new EP is set to drop in March 2018. In this episode, we discuss inspiration, creative blocks, and motherhood. Visit Cat’s Soundcloud page to hear her music, and follow her on Twitter or Instagram @thecatfrancis.

Anaïs Maranda is a musician from Quebec City who has been living in Montreal for 10 years. She loves to contemplate the why and how of creating, and to understand a little better techniques to achieve these projects. She hosts the Podcast Muse, teaches singing, works on her music, and works as a coordinator for the Montreal International Jazz Festival. You can find her work at http://desmotsquisonnent.com, and listen to her music on Spotify or iTunes under her name, Anaïs Maranda. In this episode, we discuss Anaïs’ creative journey, the ups and downs of doing non-creative (paid) work in the creative field, making tough decisions about money, and much more – all in the pursuit of creative fulfillment.

Awais Javed is a neurobiologist studying the development of the retina for his PhD. He is a first-generation Saudi-born Pakistani who has been fortunate enough to live and travel to the U.K and Canada for his studies. Growing up in Saudi Arabia, Awais had zero exposure to the act of artistic creation, and didn’t really get into the arts at all until he was in London studying for his undergraduate degree. About two years ago, he started to dabble in oil paintings and now he is hooked. In his brief time as a self-taught visual artist, he has developed a surrealistic style. His influences include Salvadore Dali, Rene Magritte, and more recently, David Lynch. In this episode, we discuss what it’s like to discover art later in life, we talk about the places where art and science intersect, the importance of choosing friends who will support your creative self, and balancing being a full time professional with an active creative practice.

I’m so psyched to announce the launch of my brand new podcast, Everyday Creative People! I created this podcast because I think there are a lot of misconceptions out there about what it means to be a creator, and who gets to be put up on a pedestal and given the label of “artist.” I believe that creative people come in all shapes and sizes, and that cultivating a creative practice is healing for the soul. In fact, I think that creative play is an essential ingredient for self care, and something that we don’t get nearly enough of in this results-focused, electronic device-dependent modern world we live in. I’ve personally experienced the crippling effects of self-doubt, fear, and lack of direction in my creative life – and the resulting burnout from my professional life because I wasn’t getting the self-care that I needed to thrive. It took not one, but TWO bouts of burnout before I finally started figuring out how to re-ignite my own creative practice. And maintaining it is an ongoing journey. So, I created this podcast for people like me. It is my hope that my listeners will get inspiration, ideas, tools and tips for how to deal with the challenges you face in your efforts to cultivate a creative practice in your life. If this sounds like the kind of thing you’d like to listen to, please take a moment to subscribe to Everyday Creative People, so you never miss an episode. And if you’d like to be part of a community with other people who are also on this journey, please come join the conversation over in the Creative Playground Facebook group.