| It's the final day!
And what an incredible month it's been!
I couldn’t be more grateful to all of you for participating, signing up, commenting, emailing, chatting, and reading.
By being here, you’ve voted for change, support, redefinition, learning and togetherness. You’ve joined a community of values-driven, creative, conscious and purposeful individuals. You’ve reached out for support with your creative practice and in turn, offered support by engaging with what matters to those around you. You’ve formulated new ideas about where you belong, what you need and what you can and want to do with your creativity. You’ve moved a step further along your own path, and we’ve been here with you.
I share below my roundup of all that's been learned this month, and start to plot the path into the future of what we've created together.
I hope you stick around for the rewards! |
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Before we dive in, if you've been inspired by Competent Rebels, and you're ready to dig deep and develop your creative practice, Stuck Sessions will give you the tools you need to gain clarity, motivation, encouragement and practical skills for a thriving practice. For more information about Stuck Sessions click here: |
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There’s a few things people do when you ask them why creative practice matters. Some light up, as if they’ve been bursting to explain. They can’t say the words fast enough because they’ve been turning them over and over in their minds, like they’ve come away from so many arguments, dissatisfied that they didn’t say what they wanted.
Others make a frustrated of sigh - even an eye roll. They’ve just spent 15 hours on a funding application a job application or a bid, trying to quantify this in ways the council/ funder/ employer/ venue can measure, compare and pit against other artists. They have done this so many times, but the truth; the real answer, is something impossible to measure: something personal, vulnerable, profound, and generally very difficult to articulate.
Freedom ...is a word that came up a lot. For many of us, creative practice gives us a sense of agency: of ownership over our own lives and our own narrative. It’s an opportunity to re-write narratives that oppress us, reclaim identities and empower ourselves. These sound like big words and grand ideals, but in fact, it’s what we’re doing everyday when we choose to turn to our creative practice; when we choose to live life our own way, define our own purpose, invent our own ways of working. Keishunda has studied this relationship; her practice is an example of how the simple creative act of recycling and reinventing t-shirts connects to a narrative that is historical, global and in desperate need of re-writing. S.a.a.r.a understood the importance of doing things her own way, bypassing those who didn’t appreciate her voice and claiming her own space. Johanna demonstrated how creative practice is the essential mechanism of politics and social change. Carmen recognised she needed to tune into the rhythms and stories of plant life as a place of safety in an anxiety-inducing world. These are all bids for freedom from oppression; small and large acts in which we are reclaiming power through creative practice, and ultimately building the world we want to inhabit in the future.
Connection ... was the other big word. Many of us feel like what comes out of our creative practice is a kind of truth; we learn about ourselves and open up to others by communicating in a specific way, or simply by doing and sharing things together. But it’s also a way we connect with the world around us, and learn to live in a more holistic way. Self expression and connection of this kind makes us who we are - it’s life, it’s being, it’s healing, it’s belonging. Georgie shared how her practice connects her to her history and environment and has given her knowledge and learning that traditional schooling alienated her from. Lucy showed us how her practice provided a way of connecting with her non-human companion - Molly the Greyhound - who showed her ways to be and thrive through the pandemic. Sinead's portrait practice means experiencing others with a unique intimacy, connecting and sharing their stories. Jenny shares how creative practice has been essential to healing and resourcefulness in dark moments. Rochelle pulls together the threads of connection to self, others, environment and future when she considers how her practice is both holistic and sustainable. And Esther's year 5 students remind us how basic fundamental these needs are and have always been to us all.
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Redefinition Half way through the project I happened to watch If Beale Street Could Talk by Barry Jenkins. There’s a line from the main character, Fonny, that stuck with me because it chimed so distinctly with what we’re all saying about who and what we are:
“I don’t like the word artist. Sure as fuck don’t know what it means. I’m a cat that works from my gut, with my hands”
In so many of the conversations throughout Competent Rebels, there has been expressed a need and a desire to change the narrative around creative practice. The systems of validation from the way we’re educated at school to the linear career paths we’re told we should have; sales and financial support; the prestige of institutions, events and appearances; the value dynamics of skill, originality, conformism and conceptual clout; follower count and social media presence; the titles we claim or fear; “artist”, “crafter”, “creative”, “professional”, “curator”, “producer”. These systems of validation are complex and contradictory, arbitrary, relative, exclusionary… let’s just say, they’re BULLSHIT. They’re a big load of bullshit, which cause great numbers of people with a creative urge, to tie themselves in knots about who they are, what they can and can’t do, where they can and can't be, what they should be aiming for and how.
Priyanshi mentioned her insecurities about exploring different mediums. Jules rejected the pull of perfectionism by sharing unpolished work, with lyrics exploring the pain of imposter syndrome. Anna shared how self criticism has plagued her, along with the revealing story of how one professor believed she was too good at drawing, such that she was rejected from a course due to a concern that this could lead to “lazy or uninteresting work”. OG Youth Collective spoke passionately about how they see creative practice infiltrating all parts of life, and how saddened and frustrated they are by the exclusionary spaces and ideals that they see alienating peers. Rahul shared his belief that we must acknowledge all our actions, political or otherwise as part of our creative work.
Like Fonny, in Beale Street, we all feel alienated and oppressed in some way by the narratives and language we are given to describe ourselves and our practice. But what we share is an authenticity and practicality that drives us to express ourselves and make tangible, palpable impacts on our reality.
Self belief Change starts at home. We cannot change the world until we believe in ourselves, our values, our purpose. Practitioners like Meg, Lizzie and Lisa understand this intimately through their coaching and teaching practices with other creative people. Their contributions share the kinds of guidance, affirmations and encouragement we all need to hear - repeatedly. I like to think of what they do as social gardening; planting seeds in others to grow the society we want. It’s so essential that we figure out how to meet our individual needs as creative people; invest in developing self-belief, self-forgiveness, kindness and space for self reflection. We need to build the confidence and safety to make with honesty, authenticity and courage; to listen to and trust our instincts even when we can’t see the big picture. We need to be able to claim our space, security and financial rewards, to stay orientated towards our values and create our own definitions of success.
Community We need encouragement and validation from people who understand us rather than social and institutional structures that don’t. We need practical solutions, ingenuity and collective approaches to funding, workspace, education and opportunities - like those being developed by Keep It Complex, Short Supply and London Writer’s Salon. We need sustainability and connection built into our day to day practice and process, enabling us to find structure, routines and sustainable ways of working. We need redefined spaces, where we can collaborate with diverse groups of people, across disciplines and professional specialisms to learn and find ourselves in new and more relevant definitions of creative practice.
Learning There are numerous stories coming out of Competent Rebels in which it’s clear that learning and education are key to creative development. Misa talks about getting unstuck through learning new concepts of productivity. Others share how new skills or mediums have lead them to new inspirations and identities. Chris shared how learning he took from professional roles lead him to his purpose and shaped his values. Learning and education is a life-long occupation for creative people, and what an incredible gift that is! If we life our lives with curiosity, always learning and staying open to opportunities we grow, our communities benefit, life is richer and more full of possibility. There is always a pressure to stick to one thing, become an expert, stay in one lane; but we can see from the stories here that this idea hinders more than it helps. It’s evidently untrue that we must only do one thing with our creative drive, that we can’t draw on new practices and processes. It is essential, as demonstrated by Ellie, that we remain playful and experimental, despite all the challenges we face in doing so.
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Competent Rebels has given me the opportunity to reflect on where I belong, who with, and how I like to work. I’ve loved every conversation, every co-working session, every submission, every comment; so this community is here to stay.
Over the coming weeks I’m putting together an action plan for building a sustainable online community, which over time, and with your input, will find ways to integrate solutions to all the needs we’ve been exploring. - The first of those solutions will be the creation of free, regular online spaces to focus, work and connect. Such as Zoom co-working sessions and socials.
- The second will be the gathering of resources and wisdom by continuing to have and share conversations and ideas from our community.
- The third will be membership opportunities which will enable coaching and mentoring programmes, skill sharing and education; with support-in-kind mechanisms and variegated pricing for both flexible and affordable access and financial sustainability.
In time, I believe we will have a thriving online space in which to gain support, space, learning, community, self belief and re-definition of what it means to create. You were the first here and it's yours!
If you want to be a part
of these future opportunities and stay in the community, I need to be able to contact you after the project so please sign up to my regular mailing list - Stuck Mail - to make sure we can stay in touch. In the meantime, if you want to ride to wave of inspiration and get moving on your creative practice with 1:1 sessions, check out Stuck Sessions below.
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Wherever this project has taken you, I want to thank you again for being here and send you all the love and luck in the world with you creative practice and beyond. As a parting gift, please enjoy this inspiration picture of my lovely dog Peggy, bounding off into the sunset. Thank you! Hannah x |
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