Worried About A Lonely Winter? Find Your Creative Community.
By Regina Winkle-Bryan
Back in late 2019, I saw a flier for The Artist’s Way Center at my local co-op grocer (because really, where else would I find it?). There, beside the bulk section quinoa, I had stopped to scan the bulletin board for ideas and inspiration. This was pre-COVID, when we were able to gather in-person here in Seattle, so I snagged a flier and pushed my cart on over to the kombucha section.
I’d heard of The Artist’s Way before. Published in 1992, Julia Cameron’s “course in discovering and recovering your creative self” has been around for a while. It made her famous. It made her wealthy. It has also helped many suffering creatives embrace their inner artist and get to work.
My motivations for doing The Artist’s Way class were many. Firstly, I had just moved to a new city and I had very few friends. I’ve lived in several places in my adult life and know how important it is to get out there and try to build relationships. But where do you find your people?
Meetup is a good place to look, and I’ve made amazing friends through the platform. The Artist’s Way Center was not a Meetup group, but rather a congregation of people who wanted to be more creative, and, I assumed, connect with others who felt the same way. If you want to meet interesting people, get together with a bunch of artists (or, in this case, closeted artists yearning to break free). I thought, “What the hell!” and signed up for the 12-week course.
Another reason the class intrigued me was the disconnect I felt from my creative side. I’ve engaged in various types of art over the years — photography, painting, fused glass, ceramics — and it’s always been an outlet for me. But as time passed and writing became my work, I found that I employed my creativity there, and withdrew from visual art altogether. The Artist’s Way Center course was my chance to rekindle my relationship with color and line.
Our class met on a dark winter evening in January in an art gallery-cum-workshop space. Kate Gavin, our talented facilitator, led the class and welcomed us into what would be our artsy community for several months. We were different people then. We had no idea that by April we would be finishing out the last few sessions over Zoom because a pandemic would shift how we lived our lives.
The people in the class were wonderful, just as I expected they would be. We were asked to be vulnerable, silly, innovative, attentive, and accountable. That last one is important. Many readers have picked up a copy of The Artist’s Way over the years and tried to tackle the twelve chapters and corresponding tasks on their own. There are probably a few disciplined folks who made it through the whole process, but I would wager that the majority of readers give up a few chapters in, floundering in the process with no accountability.
The magic of The Artist’s Way classes is the weekly check-ins. You do the tasks, write your morning pages, and show up because other people expect you to do so. You know that they will be there every Monday ready to listen to you, so you do the work because you don’t want to look like a slacker. Sometimes I need that accountability kick-in-the-butt to get things done.
Apart from our weekly meetings, we also had to come up with solo Artist’s Dates. Every week, we had to take ourselves on a date to do something creative. A trip to the art store. A museum visit. A concert. Plein-air painting. Guitar practice. A long walk alone with time to notice what spring looks and smells like. A documentary about Yayoi Kusama. The options were endless, though admittedly shrank once our world closed down in March due to the pandemic. Suddenly, we were searching for Artist’s Dates online via Dance Church and Skillshare. We had to get creative about how we sought out creativity.
There were some surprises in the process, apart from COVID. I didn’t realize just how spiritual Cameron’s “spiritual path to higher creativity” would be. If you’re a skeptic, you will have to approach The Artist’s Way with an open mind. You can embrace the God stuff or leave it, but the exercises and lessons in self-analysis are useful enough that even nonbelievers can still benefit from the process.
Another surprise is that we kept going. After our class ended in the spring, a few of us from the course decided we would continue to meet over Zoom. We chose a day and met at 7:00pm to check-in and share what we were doing artistically. We began to get to know each other even better. It was comforting to have this set date with inspiring people as the world became weirder and ever more unpredictable. We gave each other fun homework. One week I was tasked to bake a cake. The next to draw my day from waking up to bedtime.
My group still meets. Some of the members have drifted away, and they may or may not be back. It’s okay. A few of us stay on.
The reason I am sharing all of this with you is to encourage you to find your people. Nowadays, trapped as we are inside, it’s harder to meet up with friends and foster new relationships, but the human desire to connect is still there.
Most of us, even the introverts who are loving all this at-home time, need community. Maybe the winter or autumn Artist’s Way classes are a place for you to feed that need. Or maybe you’ll find it somewhere else, on Meetup, or over Happy Hour Zoom calls, or taking some fun online classes.
Community is so precious to me, especially now, as many of us are experiencing more loneliness and anxiety. The pandemic doesn’t mean we can’t find and inspire one another. It just dictates that we will have to do so in a different way.
P.S. I am in no way affiliated with The Artists’ Way Center. I just really liked the process and think some of you might, too.
