When Stefan returned from his recent trip to Scotland, he was practically glowing from all that he’d seen and experienced. He’d gotten to absorb a wide array of art galleries, beautiful architecture, castles and monuments. There was a definite spark in his eye and spring in his step, despite being quite jet lagged and recovering from a bout of food poisoning.

Ordinarily, I would have attributed his joyful enthusiasm to the novelty of travelling, but he’s travelled quite a bit over the past year to a number of different conferences and had not come home this excited. In the words of Julia Cameron, author of “The Artist’s Way,” he’d clearly filled his well with a bounty of experiences and now it was overflowing in an incredibly positive way.

He attributed the difference to the fact that he’d stayed off his phone for the majority of his time in Scotland.

In contrast, I’d been down with a bad case of the “mehs” while he’d been away. If you’ve seen the Pixar movie “Soul,” you might remember the scene where Joe takes the unborn soul 22 to the Hall of Everything in the hopes of finding her Spark. They try out a wide range of activities, but regardless of their difficulty or her proficiency, her response to all of them was “meh.”

Likewise, I couldn’t seem to get motivated about anything during that time, even activities that normally bring me a lot of joy.

The less motivation I had, the more I seemed to find myself doomscrolling on social media or mindlessly playing my favourite videogame. I was certainly consuming content and experiences, but they were all simulated ones that lacked soul-satisfying sustenance.

Instead of filling my well, it felt like I was polluting it and, by the time Stefan got back, I was looking and feeling pretty miserable.

The experiment

Stefan and I have discussed our phone habits before. Like most folks in our digital age, we recognize that we spend far too much time with our faces glued to our screens, but it’s been hard to break bad habits.

We decided as a starting point to exile our phones from the bedroom. No more puttering about or doomscrolling on our phones before we went to sleep. We’d plug in our phones to charge away from the bed and get ourselves an old-fashioned alarm clock to use instead of the one on the phone.

Simple… or so I thought.

The dreams

On the first night of having the phone away from my bed, I must have woken up three or four times. I’m usually a pretty solid sleeper, so I was surprised by how restless and unsettled I was.

Maybe it was just a fluke.

On the second night, I had full-on nightmares of trying to protect myself and the people I loved from invasive goo monsters. Again, I woke up multiple times, but this time I would slip back into the next chapter of this same bizarre horror story. In one memorable episode, my younger sister was a dancer-ninja-assassin training a group of foster kids to kill the goo things by flinging sewing needles at them.

It only got weirder from there.

On the third night, my nightmare was centred around trying to navigate my life and a confusing new city without my phone. I needed to cancel a dentist appointment… without my phone. I wanted to use Google Maps to get to another part of town… without my phone. I wanted to pay for something in a store… without my phone.

Ahh… could this be the source of my restless anxiety?

Keep in mind, I wasn’t actually trying to go cold turkey on phone use at all. Apart from trying to reduce my social media use a bit more, I was still carrying my phone with me everywhere I went, since I still needed it to track medications, buzz in deliveries to our apartment and similar mundane activities.

All I had done was committed to not having the phone next to me before going to bed… and my unconscious mind completely freaked out in response.

The addiction is real

Thankfully, the wild anxiety dreams have now subsided for the most part and I’m back to sleeping normally again with my phone charging on the dresser on the opposite side of the room.

I am, however, still quite disturbed by my body’s reaction to such a simple change. I knew I was on the phone more than I wanted to be, but I hadn’t suspected quite that level of screen addiction.

Ever since high school, some thirty-odd years ago, I have been a part of the online world. I went from connecting with folks through local online bulletin board systems (BBSs) to connecting with folks through social media from around the world.

For the first 15 years of my career, I built websites and communicated on behalf of organizations, large and small, through email marketing and social media. In my downtime, I’ve spent years and years playing World of Warcraft. I like playing through the stories within the fantasy world and my light interactions with guildmates.

The online world was my ecosystem and I didn’t see anything wrong with that.

But something has changed, particularly in the last few years. The online world feels more demanding and corruptive. Rather than feeding the soul with new connections and experiences, it feels increasingly like it’s chipping away pieces of it one attention-stealing moment at a time.

With this in mind, here are some of the other tactics that I’m using to better control how I experience the online world:

• Whatever it is, it can wait - FOMO (aka “fear of missing out”) has become an integral part of our culture. The fear is that if we aren’t regularly checking social media, we’re going to miss some vital information. As an entrepreneur, I have really struggled with this lately because not being on top of everything feels irresponsible in our current news climate. But, instead of impulsively checking social media in every other moment, I try to check it on my laptop the same way I might check my email. By engaging with it more deliberately, it feels less like a mindless leisure activity and more like work.

• Turn off all notifications - The makers of these apps know that they can use curiosity to suck you back in. Did someone comment on my post? Is there news in that group I like to follow? What am I missing out on? Again, none of these things are actually as urgent as the little red alert makes them out to be and, by hiding notifications, you can better decide when you want to engage with the online world and when you’d rather focus on the real one.

• A little friction can be a good thing - One of the most appealing things about the online world is how easy everything feels. Instead of wandering the aisles of a grocery store, you can simply type in what you’re looking for and be done with it. There can, however, be something magical about that sense of discovery that comes with interacting with the real world. For instance, this past weekend we wandered down to the Beltline to pick up a few items we missed from our online grocery order. Not only did we pick up some multi-colour carrots that we hadn’t planned on, but also ended up trying out a buffet-style hot pot place for the first time. It was a good reminder of the spontaneous bits of adventure that can happen when one allows tasks to be just a little less easy and efficient.

Final thoughts

I don’t think it’s realistic to believe that I’m ever going to be able to completely cut out phone use from my life. The online world is far too interwoven with our real one in our culture to completely escape it.

I can, however, be in choice about how I incorporate the phone and the online world into my life. I can make those interactions conscious decisions as opposed to unconscious impulses.

In this way, I am putting a filter between my internal creative well and the online sludge that threatens it. I’m still struggling with some feelings of “meh,” but at least I feel as if I’ve committed to the actions necessary to dig myself out of it.

Don’t forget that our next CreativiTEA workshop is coming up in a couple weeks!

Presence through Painting
Sunday, September 27th, from 1-3pm
Atelier Artista (4th floor)
cSPACE Marda Loop
1721 29 Avenue SW, Calgary

Tickets are $30 and include all art supplies, tea and delicious goodies.

Get Workshop Tickets

After a busy summer of seeing friends and exercising our own creative practices, we are ready to launch a whole new slate of CreativiTEA for Grown-Ups workshops. One bit of feedback we heard during the spring workshops is that participants were interested in learning what workshops would be coming up, so here are the next four workshops that we have planned for the remainder of 2026.

Presence Through Painting

Sunday, September 27th at 1pm - 3pm

Our always-popular acrylic painting workshop returns! If you missed this one back in February, come learn how the act of painting can calm the mind and bring one into the present moment.

In this workshop, we'll be using acrylic paints, brushes, canvas card, graphite tracing paper, suggested designs and pens.

Tickets: $30

Get Workshop Tickets

Inner and Outer Masks

Sunday, October 18th @ 1pm - 3pm

Whether we know it or not, we all wear masks. There are aspects of ourselves that we want the world to see, and there are aspects that we want to keep to ourselves. Using masks and collage materials, we will explore our inner and outer expressions.

In this workshop, we’ll be using white paper masks, Modge Podge, scissors and collage materials like fabric, tissue paper and magazines.

Tickets: $30

Get Workshop Tickets

Backwards, Forwards

Sunday, November 15th @ 1pm - 3pm

Do you have a goal that you are looking to achieve, but feel stuck on how to get there? Often, it can feel like you’re running in circles inside your own head if it seems like there’s only one path forward.

Based on the work of Angus Fletcher in his book “Primal Intelligence,” we will be using art-making to explore the real motivations behind the goal and how there might be multiple pathways to achieving it.

In this workshop, we will be using markers, pencil crayons and/or crayons on paper.

Tickets: $25

Get Workshop Tickets

Gratitude Time Capsules

Sunday, December 13th @ 1pm - 3pm

Create a new holiday tradition by turning a mason jar into a time capsule of gratitude, goals, challenges and triumphs that can be used for many years to come.

In this workshop, we will be using small mason jars, Modge Podge, scissors, paper and tissue paper.

Tickets: $30

Get Workshop Tickets

Can’t decide?

For the first time, we’re offering a discounted four-workshop pass for $100. The workshop pass can be purchased under any of the above workshops.

A venue that’s certain to get your creativity flowing

We are excited to be once again hosted by Atelier Artista on the 4th floor of the community arts hub, cSPACE Marda Loop (1721 29 Ave SW, Calgary).

Atelier Artista is a skills-based fine art school and studio space that’s focused on fostering appreciation and understanding of well-crafted, beautiful representational artworks through the development of the technical skills necessary to create them. They offer a wide variety of courses in drawing and painting techniques.

And did we mention the desserts?

At every CreativiTEA workshop, our baker Liza outdoes herself in artistry and taste. Thus far, we’ve had brownies, lemon squares, Nanaimo bars and a selection of frosted mini-cupcakes.

If you’re at all hesitant about exercising your creativity—not that you should because there’s no previous experience required for any of our workshops—just remember there will be all kinds of sweet, sweet incentives right at your fingertips.

(Tea and goodies are always included in the ticket price.)

That’s everything CreativiTEA-related that I can think of for now!

If you want to make sure you stay on top of new workshops as they drop—we have a total of 10 workshops planned between September and June of next year—be sure that you’re following CreativiTEA for Grown-Ups on Eventbrite.

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 exper…

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I am taking a winding staircase down deeper and deeper…

I am being rocked gently as I float along a stream…

I am allowing my body to be suffused with a warm healing light…

Each morning, Stefan’s voice is my tether as we engage in our new daily practice of trance work. We’ve been doing this every day for a few weeks now and have fallen into a rhythm that fe…

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“Settle in and settle down.”

Stefan and I recently started doing some trance meditation work right after breakfast each morning. He’ll ask me what I want to work on and then sculpt a trance around that theme.

I’m finding now that that opening phrase alone — “settle in and settle down” — is enough to slow down my breath and start me slipping into the tranc…

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A woman holds up her sheet of paper and chuckles nervously, “Sorry, I can’t draw.” The other folks around the meeting table grin and chuckle as well in a camaraderie fashion.

My inner creativity coach winces.

I’m participating in one of those icebreaker activities at a work function. The activity involves some drawing of abstract concepts, and I’m noting …

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I have probably done at least a dozen different paint-by-number kits over the past five years, and they’ve ranged from high quality to so poor as to be unfinishable.

I hadn’t encountered Davincified before, so I took a quick look over at their website, which had a very wide range of kits. Many fell …

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Late last year, I began working on the fantasy novel project that I hadn’t touched in a good decade or so. Stefan and I began by simply reading it together before bed, and I was surprised to find myself falling back into the story with greater ease than I expected.

After we completed reading aloud the 200 pages or so that I had already written, I told hi…

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Here’s an article from the archives where I discuss why adults often struggle with giving themselves permission to play with…

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So, the upcoming CreativiTEA painting workshop… there’s paint, and there are beverages… It’s just like a Paint and Sip, right?

Not exactly.

As someone with over 20 years of painting experience, I’ve done a fair few painting workshops over the years. I’ve done classes to learn new media like watercolour and oil painting. I’ve done classes to learn techniq…

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Lin-Manuel Miranda is best known as the creator and star of the Broadway smash musical Hamilton, but his list of credits and awards is as jaw-dropping as his numerous songs. In addition to Hamilton, he wrote and starred in another multi-award-winning musical, In the Heights, as well as writing songs for Disney’s Moana and Encanto. He’s the recipient of …

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I…

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Many folks might be surprised to learn that I’ve suffered significant creative blocks several times in my life.

And when I say blocks, I mean deeply creatively blocked, where even contemplating creating anything caused a downward spiral of self-judgment and anxiety. During those years, my creative drive was like an old-timey engine that spluttered and co…

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Oof… It's been quite the year, so it's understandable if you’re feeling pretty burned out at this point.

But what does it mean to feel “burned out”?

While there are many definitions of the phrase, ranging from psychological to occupational, I think the simplest is physical and mental exhaustion stemming from having too much on your plate. As the year win…

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What is a CreativiTEA?

CreativiTEA is an in-person workshop series for grown-ups that combines fun, insightful art-m…

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“Can you do a trance with me? I know I need to move, but I just can’t seem to get motivated to exercise.”

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.

“Just a sec. I’m going to try and generate something in Perplexity.”

Perplexity, like Chat…

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Growing up I had a tendency towards anxiety that impeded my ability to connect easily with others. I was what one might call a ‘scaredy cat’, fearful of strangers and familiar faces alike. While I had plenty of energy to burn, I struggled to contain my big emotions and often felt out of control. Being older now, and hopefully a touch more aware of my vu…

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