In our first workshop, we’ll explore creativity as it relates to society today, and understand the roots of the pre-existing narratives around the role of art and life of the artist that we may hold.

We’ll consider capitalism, the attention economy, the ‘tortured artist’ and ‘starving artist’ archetypes, and how they relate to, distort and hinder a personal sense of creativity and sense of freedom when crafting a creative life. I hope you will leave the first session with an understanding of some of the many reasons art is countercultural, challenging for both the artist and the audience, and ready to embrace that challenge, for it is worthwhile.

Our second workshop will begin to trace our personal sense of creativity back to the very root — we’ll employ a series of exercises and prompts to reconnect with and map our creative instincts, playful inner child, and point of interest or curiosity we might light to explore.

To build confidence around trusting our instincts, we’ll reframe creativity as something engrained and instinctual rather than a talent that is god-given or skill which one must be formally taught, looking towards ancient examples of this inbuilt creativity throughout human history until the present day as case studies.

Now that you have an idea of where your creativity is rooted and coming from, our third workshop will guide you through exploring these various possible directions before settling on a singular intention for the remainder of the course. We’ll investigate how artists and creatives we admire approach the creative process and projects with similarities for ours, and use healthy comparison as a means of finding direction.

We’ll also use this workshop to reframe the creative process so it can be as freeing and nurturing as it needs to be for our best ideas to come to fruition. We’ll explore the concepts like the beginner’s mind and Plato’s Forms, and begin to relate to our ideas as an external force which we can work with and seek to serve, to de-centre ourselves from the process and begin to lay the foundation for our best work to come through.

As we undertake our creative project of choice, we are bound to run into blocks, limiting beliefs, obstacles external and internal that disrupt our journey and obstruct the path ahead. Our fourth workshop will serve as a masterclass in gently investigating and moving through them, using a therapeutically-informed technique I developed myself and use often.

You will learn this method in detail and practice confronting your blocks in a way that not only identifies the root cause and cultivates self-compassion, but also allows you to effectively assume authority and gain the clarity you need to break longstanding patterns and take action towards your goals.

Our fifth workshop will tackle the external blocks that stand in the way of your creative life. Be prepared to pull some weeds from your garden. This is where crafting a creative life gets really practical.

You will audit your routines, habits, lifestyles and relationships in search of places where we can carve out more time, physical room, and headspace for creativity, and we will work together to consider solutions for negotiating, bypassing or shifting some of these dynamics and start building practical structures, structures, habits and behaviours that better support your creativity.

In our final workshop, we distill and fit together all you have learnt in the past 5 workshops together, and begin to learn how to structure a creative practice that takes all of these pieces into account: mindset work, creative time & space, cultivating inspiration, experimentation, and commitment to the practice.

We will personalise a structure I have designed that allows the efficient use of all of these tools, whether you have 10 minutes or several hours to dedicate to your practice. You will have a chance to implement this new approach to your practice ahead of our final check in in January.

In a final check in, you will have an opportunity to reflect on the past several weeks and receive clarity on anything needing further explanation or support.

We will meet for the last time in the new year, so you have time to implement, test and experiment with the tools you’ve learnt in your own practice, and provide accountability and a smooth transition out of the course and into your creative life.