Creative Coaching
So many of my clients are brilliantly creative. I sit down with painters, novelists, historians, actors, musicians, screenwriters, textile makers, and also so many who don't get paid for their creative work. In astrological readings I follow lines of tension the way a massage therapist does with the body, and I often find a painful knot around deepening into a creative practice.
The process of making art can feel like walking a tightrope over an abyss, with on-lookers shouting "Why? Why are you even doing this?"
That abyss holds both fear and a profound depth of experience, feeling, and wisdom. It is where we encounter our strangeness. It's where we access the ideas, images, movements, and aesthetic combinations that are necessary on a level we can't rationally justify. When we are attuned to this need and well supported in pursuing it, we explore and become curious. We bring new things into the world.But most people in your life will not ask you to do this necessary task. Some may actively block you. You may have learned to actively block yourself. Even those of us who are supported in our art practices may do this. Encountering that abyss where both monsters and treasures await us doesn't feel heroic as we do it. Being in that wrestling, restless, groping, empty, flailing-our-arms-to-balance process can feel daunting and thankless—unlike nearly everything else we do. We get small hits of endorphins all day long from answering emails and cleaning the house, working on social justice campaigns or hanging out with friends, playing games on our phones and checking things off a to-do list. The process of artmaking asks us to sink into a different, deeper mode of being. Who's reminding you that this is also necessary?
Making art is a vital need not just for you, but for our shared world.
I'm personally invested in you making the art that is yours to make, in whatever medium you choose, whether you make money from it or not. My vision of a better world includes so many more of us deepening into our innate creativity and feeling our way, gropingly and bravely, toward something new. I'd like to offer you tools for taking those first steps, and then the next ones. With my Virgo Sun and my Sagittarius rising, I'm skilled at offering both strategies and encouragement.
As a creative coach, I bring my lifelong experience as an artist and an astrologer.
I've been drawing since I could hold a pencil and I've benefited from years of art lessons, graduate-level MFA courses, creative accountability cohorts, and Andrew Simonet's powerful program Artist's U. I've made my living entirely through artwork and astrology since 2015, when I quit my side hustle as a copy editor. I understand the rhythm and risks of artmaking, including the many times I told myself "I don't think I can draw anymore" or "Maybe I'm finally out of ideas" or "Maybe I should go back to a job where I can just be anonymous" during the 14 years my art has brought in a significant part of my income. I also hold a strong anchoring cord rooted into the times when I am in flow, in inspiration, and I am flooded with gratitude for the time and the tools to let the art come through.
If you can make the time, I can help you develop your tools.
I've also been speaking astrology since I was very young. My astrological fluency helps me tap into your chart's creative modes and core talents. Astrology is a fairly good road map for the process of becoming. Looking at both your birth chart and timing techniques can help us understand what's arising for you right now, what change it's asking for, and how to meet that call within the context of your daily life. We often get stuck in grooves of shame or self-discipline that can short-circuit the creative process, which relies on fallow times and failures as much as productive, churning out the work activity. Astrological creative coaching helps you collaborate with your own times and ways of being in flow, and strategize around internal and external restrictions.
Creative Coaching is live in February 2024. If you're interested, you can apply here.