I think being an artist is having that connection to yourself
so deeply,
so firmly,
that against all of the noise,
all of society's praise
& everything around you signaling,
“You're doing a good job.” & “Just keep on going.”-
you can't ignore the thing inside your chest that says:
no. something more. this is not it. this is not it.
Today is about the profound impact of good questions.
Introspective questions.
The issue is, sometimes we forget to ask ourselves (good/non self deprecating) questions.
So, having someone to talk to is really important.
*someone who is more concerned with listening than speaking.
*someone who is more curious and expansive than lovingly trying to brace you for impact.
*someone who has the ability to ask really fucking good questions rather than offer (irrelevant) advice.
Really good questions happen when someone is listening for what you're not saying just as much as what you are saying.
They happen when someone is more invested in your wellbeing than their ego or fears.
This is my lived experience of working with a mentor/coach over the last 4 years.
I'm officially opening my books up for mentoring sessions.
(In the past, I've called them coaching sessions. For me, the term mentoring always kind of felt like, “allow me to impart wisdom” and I don’t like that. BUT it feels like mentoring is a more familiar term for most people and i realize it’s more important for me to use a common language rather than leaning on my personal baggage/nit-picky bones to pick with particular language choices. Either way- whatever the fuck it’s called- it’s been a pivotal part of my growth in my work and wellbeing.)
Why am I offering mentoring sessions?
the backstory: So recently I've decided to start applying for adjunct faculty roles in photo institutions. As part of my application process for one of them, I had to propose my own course and curriculum.
So naturally, this course obviously needs to be the holy grail of everything that I am passionate about rolled up into one potent and healthily ambitious 5 week experience.
For the sake of context and transparency, here it is:
Sustaining the Visionary Artist Life
& Well Being through Photographic Consciousness
This course provides a holistic approach to sustaining the artist life by focusing on personal well-being, self-discovery, and creative exploration through craft.
Participants will learn to cultivate their artistic vision through self-reflection, presence, and the merging of professional and personal philosophy that nourish both their inner and outer world.
The course is designed to help photographers create meaningful work, maintain connection to self, and develop resilience in navigating uncharted paths as lifelong artists.
Week 1: Discovering Your Inner Lens
Theme: Exploring the Self and Artistic Identity
Week 2: Photographic Presence: A Way of Being Through Seeing
Theme: The Photograph Is Not The Point- An Active Meditation
Week 3: Conscious Creation: Deepening Connection Between Self and Craft
Theme: Healing, Self-Expression, & Empowerment through Photographic Practice
Week 4: Developing Personal & Professional Philosophy
Theme: Harmonizing Creative Practice with Life and Career
Week 5: Thriving as a Visionary Artist: Sustaining Your Practice for Life
Theme: Conviction & Flexibility
Okay.
So.
I submitted it.
And now I'm waiting to hear back.
But here’s the thing-
I don't want to wait to hear back in order to get to work.
I want to be in this work directly- NOW.
excerpt from my cover letter:
I'm a photographic artist and educator working at the crossroads of philosophy, consciousness, and self discovery through photographic practice. My work is rooted in continuous studies, ever expanding self-expression, and empowering artists from all walks of life.
Since 2012, I've been navigating life as a working artist, walking that line between both professional/personal satisfaction and survival. In 2018, I became a mother and have become devoted to offering tools to harness creative practice for wellness and support in sustaining this way of life.
I absolutely loved my school and the experience, but I deeply lament the severe lack of focus on longterm realities, wellbeing, and awareness in maneuvering the uncharted territory artists are left to navigate alone after school.After leaving full-time corporate, I've juggled freelance opportunities alongside private client commissions but my deepest passion has been in creating education around photographic consciousness.
I have privately mentored as well as hosted self-lead programs, braiding the threads of the personal cravings of creative life and the tenacious demands of sustaining it with the immense gifts that the photographic medium can give us….
blah, blah, blah- okay.
Most of the offerings that I see in this world are around
strengthening & supporting the work.
Even when we're thinking about process, there’s a lot about techniques, ethics, activism- and yet very little speaking directly to the wellness and healing properties of the craft.
What about strengthening & supporting the artist?
The very thing that starts out as our greatest joy or enthusiasm, (any creative endeavor not exclusive to photography) can cause complications in our everyday lives.
That frustrating narrative, “the starving artist”, (so fucking annoying, and to be honest, there's a reason why it exists) can be difficult, isolating, & disorienting.
If we don't have the wherewithal to slow down or have someone to echo and mirror your experience with you, we can miss the fact that the very thing that's causing the struggle can be the thing that helps us lift us out of it. The thing that helps harness our power to navigate these uncharted territories.
So instead of waiting for an institution to pick me in order to have this conversation,
I want to start having these conversations now. One-on-one.
Anyone can make amazing work.
What matters is the experience inside of the artist.
We all know how it feels to have someone love a piece of work that we've done that we couldn't care less about. It's a hollow feeling.
But when it's something that we are deeply connected to and someone takes a minute to notice-that feeling resonates far beyond the moment it was said.
Praise isn’t enough to sustain our creative spirits. Being deeply seen and having space held feels the same as someone resonating with the exact piece of work that brought you to tears.
At the end of the day, we're in this practice, we're in the actual craft as often as we desire or as life permits. There is a likelihood that we are outside of the work far more than we are in it.
So when we're outside of that flow state, outside of that creative practice-
How are you living your life?
How are you feeling your life?
The odds are more of our lives are spent around people that don't share that same passion.
…and that’s okay and to be expected. We are all unique humans with unique visions.
Mentoring creates a space for me to step into my power and not feel like the outlier. It’s a space in which there's nothing I could say that someone would wince with caution or trepidation. There’s no paranoia of feeling like someone is trying to feign interest in my words. (THE WORST)
Why mentoring?
Why now?
It feels crucial.
It feels urgent for the intentional, sensitive, deeply loving souls of the world to be supported to be in their lives and create the work they're meant to. The very work the world so desperately needs.
I wince when I think about how much art doesn't get made.
How much art doesn’t get lived because of the overwhelming pressures and expectations and struggles of a life.
Empowering this special breed of human is so important to me.
And I am not sitting here having conquered fucking anything.
I do not have an impressive steady salary.
I do not skip through fields of daisies with carefree joy everyday of my life.
But I am sitting here with conviction and unconditional self trust in my bones in my ability to create deeply meaningful work and life according to my vision.
My commitment to seeing and deepening my understanding of consciousness woven with creative practice woven with neuro linguistic programming woven with lived experience and connection to an ever evolving self is unwavering.
I have two little boys and a mortgage and a partner who is also in the arts. I’m traveling a lot for work and am constantly rethinking how to support myself and my family in this arena. I come to this space with a deep reverence understanding of the realities of life.
But I also hold a deep conviction in knowing that doesn't have to mean sacrifice in your life's work and in your soul's fulfillment.
In fact, it mustn’t.
It requires great honesty with yourself to hold onto that conviction.
Recently I watched a documentary on Robert Irwin- an installation artist.
Such a fucking badass.
He talks about how he was naturally good at illustration. At a young age he had a show and he said for the first time he was able to look at his work on the wall clearly and decided, “this is terrible.”
Despite everyone’s praise and the ease in which he created, he decided it didn’t mean anything. He said “at that point I became an artist.”
That's not to say that it has to be hard or you have to be dissatisfied with your work to be an artist, not at all. (although often the case lol)
I think being an artist is having that connection to yourself so deeply, so firmly, that against all of society's praise and all of the noise and everything around you signaling
“You're doing a good job. Just keep on going.”
…you can't ignore the thing inside your chest.
The one that craves something more, something different.
The one that knows this is not it.
This is not it.
So Irwin goes on to start experimenting with what he could do inside a frame on a canvas. Diving into philosophy & perception & experience, his art radically changes.
And then at some point in time, he completely abandons painting and starts doing experiential installation works.
He rejected his own original medium of art, not because he wasn't getting acclaim or success or praise but because he once again decided it didn't mean anything to him.
He answered some tough questions that brought him so outside the box of his mind that he completely changed the course of his life.
I deeply respect his willingness to abandon what he had known until that point. Letting go of all that was familiar and comfortable to really commit to whatever truth was for him.
Abandoning the known, the familiar in pursuit of a truth you don’t even know yet because you just KNOW it’s right with your soul…
SIGN. ME. UP.
When I get that itch, I will not let it go.
There is no going back or staying put.
You cannot unsee what you saw in your mind’s eye.
What ambiguous truth are you in pursuit of?
Do you even know yet?
It’s exciting as fuck either way.
I would love to support you in your visionary craving for more.
Let’s figure out how to harness that power and make that life force sustainable- something that you can access unconditionally.
Making a wrong choice isn’t ask scary as we might think.
It’s an opportunity to deepen into our knowing, to learn, to fuel us in ways we might never understand but live better with its wisdom.
Not seeing a choice, a possibility of the most alive option- that is scary.
The goal of mentoring is not to give advice. It’s uncovering choice.
To me, the sacred role of being a mentor for someone means a commitment to seeing you.
It’s about listening, connecting threads, and opening possibility.
I am an open book with nothing off limits. Any question you might have about my process, my editing, the craft, session logistics, tips & tricks, personal & professional philosophies- I’m happy to talk through it all.
But at the end of the day, it's not about me.
It's about you having someone mirror to you who are you being in this moment.
What you're actually wanting?
What are you actually believing and living and valuing?
and where's the dissonance?
where are the opportunities for discovering deeper truth within yourself?
AND THEN taking that inspired energy into literally every aspect of your life.
The most impactful self discoveries tend to be so simple.
Something so obvious we miss it.
How do we uncover these?
Questions. Good questions.
The best mentors and coaches I’ve had ask me really great questions redirecting me back to myself.
Redirect back, redirect back, redirect back.
We always have everything we need- we just forget.
Forget, remember, forget, remember.
I'm able to strengthen and stay tethered to my truth and what's real for me,
no matter how often that's changing.
I'm forever evolving and growing.
I am able to do this month after month after month through the prompted photographic journaling templates that I make in nostalgia, now. (paid subscribers get access to new one of a kind templates every month) I've been doing this for years. I truly believe it is constantly aligning the trajectory of my life with my soul’s purpose.
With the one-on-one mentoring, I'm taking, that monthly practice to another level and bringing it to you directly, curated to your needs, desires, dreams, truth.
It's real time, intimate, vulnerable, safe, non-judgemental deep questionings of your experiences, beliefs, values, emotions, & struggles.
Revealing blind spots.
Becoming a catalyst for transformation and a clear understanding of your identity and vision.
It's like a self-created roadmap that gives you peace in being able to put your finger on something and saying, “oh, oh yeah. oh, that's why that's happening. oh, this is why I feel restless and discontent. this is why i feel so alive when I do this. This is why I feel so drained here.”
It's not a magic pill.
It doesn't make everything go away and everything magically easy- it does something way more enduring & way more beneficial.
It gives you-
awareness of the subconscious patterns that are running the show under the surface.
tools to stay tethered to your truth & your creative flow state.
resiliency and reverence for your authentic voice and your unique path.
an inner compass to go to when shit gets weird and hard.
it decreases the amount of time we spend in detours. (think molehill vs mountain)
If you’re feeling restless, discontent, craving a deeper connection with yourself and vision…
If you’re wanting support in navigating a transition in your life…
If you're looking to uncover deeper truth or reveal new perspectives…
If you have this feeling that there's something more...
An itch you can’t quite seem to scratch but it’s itchy as fuck…
I would love to connect.
Let’s go down, down, down into the depths and uncover the beautiful layers of you so that you can live more freely, expansively, and embodied with an unconditional connection to self.
How do we work together?
1:1 monthly support. $497
My monthly support includes zoom sessions as well as in your pocket support through Voxer, ( a voice note app to send each other voice notes.)
If you have any questions, reach out.
I would love to chat through what is on your heart.
aaaaaaand…….
In the spirit of asking good questions, I'm going to leave you with questions….
“the search is what everyone would undertake
if he were not struck in the everyday-ness of his own life.
To be aware of the possibility of the search is to be on to something.
Not to be on to something is to be in despair.”
-Walker Percy
What are you onto?
What is something that feels like it's magnetically drawing you towards it?
What are you curious about?
Maybe it’s something that “doesn’t make sense” or seems inconsequential.
Discount nothing as you journal.
Get it on the paper.
Give it a chance to breathe.
Understand your life force feeling.Find space in your life right now- even if it’s 5 minutes.
What is that reprieve?
Just identify it.
If you don't know what that is, it's okay.
Sit there.
Close your eyes, take a few breaths.
Remember the last time you felt that energy of exhilaration where you take a deep breath and exhale- not from tension, but from actual, simple awe.When's the last time you lost track of time?
What are those worlds?
Where are you going?What are you onto?
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