But what happens when events unexpectedly attach themselves to the work?

“Rising Together” is a painting I began working on in late 2023 for my solo exhibition on love and disability. From the start, I always knew that it was going to be the painting that encapsulated the exhibit, so I gave myself lots of time and space to chip away at it.

On March 12, 2024, I posted this photo to Instagram as I worked on the painting with the caption: “Sometimes I feel the need to remind myself that this is my job now. 🥰”

I was in my studio. I was working on a beautiful painting for my exhibit. I vividly remember feeling that all was right with the universe, which is why I took the photo to commemorate the moment.

Ten days later, I would be admitted to the hospital with a broken left thigh bone, and my whole world felt like it had been turned upside down.

New threads of meaning

“Rising Together” was always intended to be a meaningful painting. Our wedding photographer perfectly captured a beautiful romantic memory, but also the unusual reality of being an interabled couple.

Circumstances, however, added unintended, painful layers to the painting’s meaning.

As I pressed onwards from my hospital bed, the painting was still the emotional and conceptual tentpole of the exhibit, but I spent a lot of time concealing its rougher, unfinished edges in my promotional materials. The August 2024 exhibit would ultimately include 11 mockups and unfinished paintings alongside the 33 finished pieces, but I still wanted the marketing to have a polished first impression.

The exhibit was a resounding success, but I still considered it a compromised version of my original vision.

Through the long months of my hospital stay and gruelling rehab, I promised myself that someday I would finish all the paintings and stage the exhibit as originally intended.

Of course, when I did finally get out of the hospital in January 2025, my focus was on clawing my way back to my previous level of functionality—or at least as close an approximation to it as I possibly could.

More time passed, and the finished and unfinished works from the exhibit remained packed in boxes at the studio.

Untangling for Tangled

When I was invited to be part of a group exhibition at Tangled Art + Disability in Toronto, I thought it would be just the push I needed to start working on those unfinished paintings from the exhibit again.

So, this past March, I committed “Rising Together” as one of the three paintings I would be sending for the September exhibit. I suspected that there would be resistance, but I figured I would have plenty of time to finish the painting.

I tried to break the process down into the smallest, most manageable steps possible:

• Go through the exhibit boxes at the studio to find the painting

• Bring the painting home and place it somewhere where I can see it

It was around this point that my desire to take slow, careful steps towards my goal turned into an elaborate dance of avoidance and procrastination.

• I should find those missing paints and brushes that are buried somewhere in the studio.

• I should finish the Lucy paint-by-number first, since the company did ask me before my agreement with Tangled.

• I should start a new tiny painting as a warm-up and practice with my stay wet palette.

Realizing my excuses were getting increasingly ridiculous, and that I needed to send out “Rising Together” with the other paintings in less than a month, I finally buckled down this past long weekend.

I needed to start, but when I finally did, it was a painting session unlike any I’ve ever had before.

It began with tension as I laid out my materials. The tension grew as I chose an area to work on—one of those very obvious unfinished areas that I had cropped out in my promo materials at the hospital.

By the time I put brush to canvas, I was on the verge of tears, but I pushed forward. I began muttering to myself, “I don’t need to finish it. I just need to change it,” to remind myself that I didn’t need to finish it in this single session; I only needed to make progress.

When Stefan got back from walking the dog, I was a wreck. The dam burst, and I sobbed in his arms for a time.

Grief. Waves and waves of grief flowed over me.

I had told myself in the hospital that someday I would stage the exhibit with its original vision as I had intended. I realized, however, that I would never be able to turn back the clock in that way.

It had been over two years since I last worked on “Rising Together,” and I couldn’t remember what I had originally intended. More than that, I’d had experiences as an artist and a human that had changed how I painted. I’d done a half dozen different paint-by-numbers from my hospital bed. I’d learned to paint with oils and illustrated an entire children’s picture book using digital painting.

I was grieving the “innocent” person I was before my time in hospital.

I was grieving the “untainted” exhibit that hadn’t been shown before it was truly ready.

I was grieving the path I would never be able to take.

Healing one brushstroke at a time

As I continued to work on the painting, my roiling emotions gradually began to subside.

I recall the tension noticeably easing when I decided to paint tread on the wheelchair’s tire. I had a vague recollection of discussing the tire with my painting mentor during class when I first started the painting. Knowing him, he would have been firmly in the “less is more” camp and, knowing my love of detail, I would have been arguing for “more is more.”

I couldn’t remember how the discussion had been resolved, so I painted the suggestion of tread into the tire anyway.

My instinct that I needed to change the painting had been right, though. The closer I brought the painting to finished in the here and now, the less important the pre-hospital, hypothetical painting became.

I also decided not to linger with it any longer than necessary. I didn’t need to be perfect; it only needed to be finished.

Plus, I had really not anticipated the emotional blowback, and that seemed a good enough reason to leave well enough alone once I got to the point of diminishing returns.

Final Thoughts

I have wrestled with grief around a path not taken before. It was back in 2004 when I was hit by a car at a crosswalk. That recovery had been comparatively easy with a cracked hip and a month and a half in bed.

Still, for years and years, I believed that accident had cost me the dream of working professionally as an animator.

What eventually helped me past that was realizing everything that I had gained.

• If I hadn’t gotten hit by the car, I would have never had the settlement that became the down payment for my first condo.

• If I didn’t own my condo, I wouldn’t have been able to adopt a dog—Lola.

• If I had become an animator, I would have been hustling from contract to contract and never had the kind of steady salaried jobs in tech that I did.

• If I hadn’t had the steady salaried jobs, I wouldn’t have had time to think about finding a partner. I would never have met my husband.

I don’t know if enough years have passed for me to do a similar thought experiment with my hospital stay, but I do not doubt that eventually I will be able to connect similar dots to all the things that matter to me most.

When that happens, I’m sure new layers of meaning will get added to “Rising Together”.

Athena is an artist, writer and creativity coach who believes that anyone can benefit from a healthy creative practice.

I’m old enough to remember when you had to load a roll of 35mm film into a camera that wasn’t part of your phone. It always seemed like such a disaster when you realized after getting the photos back from the developer that you’d wasted one of those precious 36 images because you snapped a photo with the lens cap on or had included the tip of your finger in an otherwise perfect photo.

So what are we doing with this ability to snap a near-limitless number of photos?

In our household, it’s often photos of us when we’re eating out, pictures of cute coffee art, Lucy sleeping in incredibly awkward positions and those “we were there” type photos that get taken on vacation.

Even in an age of abundant snapshots, we tend to take photos of times that we want to remember and revisit.

In contrast, I’ve noticed that I’ll avoid the photos on my phone from my extended stay in the hospital. These were important to me at the time as a way of sharing with folks what I was going through, but I find that looking at them now pricks my sense of unease.

It’s not that I’m trying to block out those memories. Some of those memories were genuinely very happy ones. It’s more that I recognize the importance of not swimming in that type of memory if it doesn’t feel good to me.

Making art from photos and memories

Many of my paintings begin as snapshots taken on my phone of everyday moments.

I had initially assumed that I was choosing particular moments to paint based solely on the aesthetics of the image—for instance, the vibrant colours of a sunset or the play of light and shadow on a set of espresso cups.

What I realized recently is that, because my paintings typically take two or three weeks to complete, I’m choosing photos of memories based on how the memory in that photo makes me feel. I know that through the course of working on that painting, I am going to be immersed in that memory and that feeling for hours and hours.

A memory of calm.

A memory of awe.

A memory of joy.

These are the kind of photos that I am most likely to paint because those are the kind of emotions I want to feel while working on the painting.

I do understand the desire of some creatives to express their pain or trauma through their work, either to process the thornier parts of their history or share that part of their story with others.

It may feel creatively necessary, but I would also add a caution to remember exactly what it is that you are swimming in. Immersing yourself in a memory, particularly an intense one that has a great deal of emotion attached to it, can bring up those same emotions while you’re expressing that moment creatively.

The act may feel therapeutic, or it might feel damaging—particularly if you are choosing to revisit an old wound over and over again.

I believe the most important piece is to be in choice.

If you notice that the subject matter of your creativity is bringing you down, perhaps try switching it up for a bit as a palette cleanser. (No pun intended.)

• Dig through your playlist and find a song that makes you want to sing and dance along, then throw your whole body into singing and dancing along.

• Create a painting about a time when you felt completely at peace as you drifted in a kayak on a sunlit lake.

• Make a nostalgic collage using wrappers from all your favourite candies from childhood.

What memories will you choose to immerse yourself in today?

Athena is an artist, writer and creativity coach who believes that anyone can benefit from a healthy creative practice.

I recently sent my debut fantasy novel off to an editor, and it got me thinking about getting feedback on our creative works. I know for many folks that fear of feedback is something that can hamper their artistic practice. A part of them wants to improve, but they are afraid of how they might feel if someone criticizes their work harshly.

Will their self-esteem survive the critique, or will it crush their spirit?

In cases such as these, it’s important to remember these P’s and how they intersect.

• Purpose - why are you making this work?

• Passion - how invested are you in this work?

• People - who is it for?

Example: Paint-by-number of Steampunk Lucy.

Purpose: I was offered a free custom paint-by-number kit from Davincified in exchange for a review and a post on social media. Also, because it’s a paint-by-number kit, I was using it as a way to centre myself after breakfast and plan my day.

Passion: While it was a project that I was happy to engage in, if the opportunity hadn’t come along, I would simply have found a different sort of paint-by-number kit to work on.

People: The finished painting was for my husband and me, as we were the ultimate audience for it; ours was the only opinion that really mattered.

Interestingly, these three P’s can also help navigate where your work fits on the Hobby, Job, Career, Vocation spectrum from my earlier resource, Choosing Creativity as a Vocation.

Referring back to this diagram, my paint-by-number work falls squarely into the “Hobby” in that it doesn’t make me money and doesn’t matter to me on a deeply personal level. Likewise, any feedback that I receive about this work doesn’t really need to be taken to heart.

However, what about work that falls into other categories?

Example: Designing a website for a client

I have designed many, many websites in my day, from tiny one-person operations to small businesses and non-profits. It was something I was good at, and it paid the bills, but I wouldn’t say that I had a burning passion for the work.

Purpose: To make a website that clearly promotes the work of the client

Passion: I want to do a good job, but ultimately, this is work that was instigated by someone else that I am being paid to do.

People: The website is for the client and the people that they serve.

Work such as this is very much in the “Job” category, and that strongly influences how I absorb that feedback.

The truth is, I have built websites that I personally thought weren’t the best-looking, and these came about largely because of feedback from the client. I would present them with a website that I thought looked good. They would respond with how they want it changed. If I think the changes aren’t in the best interest of the client, I will say so… but ultimately, the client is always right.

In situations like this, it is important not to invest a ton of passion or take negative feedback to heart because there will be times when I have to make things that I personally don’t like.

I think the most cringe-worthy website I ever designed had a navy blue background with these bevelled buttons in Christmas-like red and green. I still shudder when I see it in my mind’s eye, but that is specifically what the client wanted.

But that’s okay. That is the nature of doing creative work as a Job.

Example: Getting feedback on my novel

It’s difficult to say whether my novel-writing efforts are in the “Career” category or the “Vocation” category. Even though the results matter greatly and I have poured a huge amount of passion into the project over the years, I don’t know how much I need the novel to make money, which is the big differentiating factor between those categories.

Of course, I would like the novel series to make money, but I would still describe it as more of a passion project, even though I am trying to be smart about the marketing and money-making aspects.

Purpose: To publish a fantasy novel series and get the story I’ve been envisioning for so long in front of an audience

Passion: High. Very, very high. I have invested a great deal of time and effort into world-building and writing this story.

People: I’m writing this story for myself and for people who enjoy reading fantasy stories.

When you are getting feedback on an artistic effort that you are very passionate about, it is incredibly important to pay attention to where that feedback is coming from. You don’t want to take the feedback of random trolls on the internet too seriously, but you also don’t want to rely only on the glowing feedback of friends and family either.

You want to make the creative project better, and you want to be in the best possible headspace to improve that work.

In terms of feedback for the novel, I hired a development editor. More than that, I didn’t just hire any editor off the internet; I went to a friend who worked previously in the publishing industry and asked her for a recommendation. I knew this was a friend who believed in my writing and would point me to a professional.

I was nervous about putting myself out there, but at the same time, I was also hugely gratified when she sent the following to me as part of her feedback on the book.

Athena, congratulations on completing this highly entertaining novel! The quality of your writing is so high, and you have a real gift for evoking atmosphere/setting. Also, your characters are very well drawn, and I love the banter between Oren and Alexis.
~ Bev Katz Rosenbaum, Editor and Author

The editor also sent me about five pages of notes on structural and point-of-view changes that she’s suggesting I make, but I am completely fine with that. I chose where I was getting my feedback very carefully, and I am confident that the suggested changes will make the story better.

Note that if you can’t afford to hire a professional to give feedback, consider looking for someone who has skills in the subject area that you respect and who is going to give constructive feedback that is in your best interest.

Again, a random troll commenting on your Instagram post is not feedback that you should take to heart.

You don’t know them. They don’t know you. You don’t know their level of experience. They don’t know the purpose or the passion that you’ve put into a particular project. Whatever they throw at you—be it good or bad—isn’t something that needs to be taken in deeply.

Final Thoughts

When I was in animation school, I had an instructor or two who made me hate getting feedback. I was so incredibly passionate about creating animation at the time, and it stung deeply when my efforts were criticized.

It hurt because my attitude towards this work was so far out of alignment with the attitude of the instructors. In my mind, I was making passion projects that I was pouring my heart and soul into, and they were trying to prepare me for a job where the only goal was to crank out the required number of seconds of animation each day for a director and a studio that got the final say.

Remember those three P’s—purpose, passion and people—and you’ll save yourself a boatload of heartache.

Athena is an artist, writer and creativity coach who believes that anyone can benefit from a healthy creative practice.

As I write this, it’s raining heavily in Calgary, and the city is on edge.

Ever since the massive 2013 flood, whenever the mountain snow starts to melt, and seasonal rain causes the rivers to rise, the city’s anxiety rises with it.

It’s understandable. The 2013 event—the biggest flood the city had experienced since 1897—caused an estimated $6 billion in damages. It flooded entire neighbourhoods along the Bow and Elbow Rivers and put city landmarks like the Saddledome and Stampede Grounds under water.

So potent is that collective memory that I found myself being influenced by it when we arrived in Calgary in 2018. Many of my neighbours saw the flood first-hand and were a part of the recovery efforts, so as the years went by, I found their anxiety being passed on to me.

Helpful vs unhelpful anxiety

Our imagination is a powerful tool because it allows us to take information that we have available to us and use it to predict outcomes. Now, because our minds are heavily wired for survival, our minds tend to use that information to predict negative outcomes, so that we can avoid them.

For instance, ever since my thigh bone fracture and lengthy hospital stay, I’ve paid close attention to my anxiety as I have continued through my rehab and recovery. While I might get frustrated at my inability to do some task that I could do before, my anxiety reminds me to be cautious.

My genetic condition makes my bones brittle. My broken thigh bone healed wonky. Is it worth the risk, or should I take those extra few minutes to find a safer option?

Similarly, when the river starts to rise, and the city sends out flood or weather alerts to residents, heeding those warnings is simply the smart thing to do. Today is not the day for a leisurely paddle down the river.

The problem comes when our imaginations begin to elaborate on the information that has been provided, and the mind generates an outsized level of anxiety based on these predictions.

Using the artist’s eye to see what is true

As an artist, I have also found myself grappling with what my mind thinks it sees versus what is actually in front of me. Take this portrait that I completed when I was first learning acrylics.

Now, I love this painting, and it hangs above the couch in our living room. It’s beautiful and elegant, but it doesn’t look at all like the woman in the reference photo I was working from, and it doesn’t look like a “real” person.

At the time, I was struggling with what my mind thought a person looked like, particularly parts like the nose, lips and hands. No matter how many times I drew a face, those parts morphed into my mind’s interpretation as opposed to reality.

I decided to combat this tendency to interpret by doubling down on reality. I used the light table on my animation desk to trace 50 celebrity faces. I traced real noses, real lips, real hands… over and over and over again. The more faces I traced, the more I began to let go of the idea of a nose, and it became a collection of shapes that together formed a nose.

Learning to see with my eyes rather than my mind, is one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned as an artist.

It greatly improved my artistic skills, (as you can see from this freehand digital painting that I finished after my fifty traced faces), and I’ve since learned to apply this way of thinking when I notice my anxiety creeping up as well.

Checking anxiety against reality

Imagine for a moment that your manager unexpectedly snaps at you at work. Yesterday, he was cheerful and chatty as you’ve come to expect, but today he’s closed off and short-tempered.

Anxiety interprets the available information as: “He’s mad at me. I must have done something wrong, and he’s going to fire me.”

But, is it true? Could something else have happened?

Perhaps he got some distressing health news. Perhaps his own boss said something rude to him. Perhaps there’s a conflict at home that has him distracted.

Instead of spinning off infinite scenarios, you could do a reality check.

“Hey, I noticed you don’t seem like yourself today. Is something wrong?”

He might very well say, “I didn’t appreciate how you wrote that report” and you’d have to deal with that.

He might also say something like, “Sorry, I found out that my kid is being picked on at school and I’m not handling well,” and recognize that he wasn’t being fair to you.

He might also brush it off and not say anything of note.

Regardless, doing a check against the reality of the situation can be incredibly helpful when it comes to separating unhelpful anxiety from helpful anxiety.

As for Calgary’s high-running river, I made a point of stepping out the door this morning in the pouring rain to check where the water levels were at.

The river isn’t at 2013 levels with the water almost touching the underside of the Peace Bridge.

It is running high, but still way below the bottom of the Peace Bridge.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that the water won’t keep rising as the rain continues. The situation could become more dangerous for Calgarians, or it could become a meteorological footnote and be forgotten in a week.

Helpful anxiety has a purpose because it keeps us prepared, but it’s always important not to let our minds flood us with negative hypothetical outcomes.

Athena is an artist, writer and creativity coach who believes that anyone can benefit from a healthy creative practice.

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Athena peered over at me expectantly. Feeling a bit burnt out and unsure about what I’d want to include in an impromptu hypnosis session, I reached for my phone.

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