Joy in Creative Community
What I've learned from facilitating an Artist's Way workshop series for the past two years... and hello, year three!
I first read “The Artist’s Way”, the 1992 book by Julia Cameron, in 2021. I had just moved into a cozy, fixer-upper in the woods next to Lake Michigan, and while my spirit was really happy to be settling in for some extended time in nature, I was also feeling desperately lonely.
I didn’t think so much about about what, or rather who, I was leaving behind when I moved away from Milwaukee, my home for the previous ten years. 2020 was an isolating year, for reasons I need not explain, and I had almost forgotten what life was like before.
But the truth, and what felt even more lonely, was there was no “before” I wished to return to anymore.
2020 was like going into a chrysalis against my will and the process of coming out was (and still is) long and arduous.
Everything I had been holding on to — physically, emotionally, psychologically — would be laid bare over the next few years and there was no point in trying to hold it together anymore.
You see, before the pandemic, I had been already going through a multi-year process of deconstructing my faith. Evangelical Christianity had gotten its manipulative death grip in me as an impressionable and vulnerable teenager and it was like prying the tiniest, most painful splinters out from beneath your fingernails to undo the spiritual psychosis.
Therapy was what really changed my life and changed me for the better. I have been “putting in the work,” as they say, with my therapist for the past several years and it’s been so worth it in every way.
Religion was how I coped before therapy. I wasn’t raised super religious. I chose it. It kept the demons away — and I didn’t just think that figuratively.
What I learned later on, through therapy and deconstructing, was that it brought me new demons. They were more clever, more inconspicuously disguised.
The hardest part of leaving “the church,” in the broad sense of the word, was leaving my community and feeling like I had lost a part of what gave me a sense of identity. Everything else felt so unknown and I doubted who I was without it.
It was through discovering a new kind of community, a more creative community, that the wool was pulled from my eyes and I began to see things more clearly. I became less afraid, less anxious in the world. I saw humanity as more loving, open, and joyful.
I have been a part of so many communities in my lifetime. I live for community, in so many ways. I know, deep down, that my greatest desire since I was a child has been to find a sense of belonging and feeling of being known, even at my own detriment (AKA joining a cult.)
I have been a part of homeschooling communities, small town communities, artist communities, extracurricular communities, fandom communities, church communities, college ministry communities, neighborhood communities, small business owner communities… the list goes on. It took me until I started leading our Artist’s Way workshop series to learn the most important lesson of all: to learn what creative community actually is.
Creative community doesn’t just mean we’re all artists of some sort or another who come together to talk about art and share our experiences in the art world.
You don’t have to think you’re an artist to be a part of a creative community.
You simply have to approach community, relationships and friendships, CREATIVELY.
What does it look like, you ask? GREAT question!
Creative community looks like shared vulnerability.
It looks like curiosity.
It looks like openness and non-judgment.
It looks like radical kindness.
It looks like belly-aching laughter.
It looks like peace and acceptance.
It looks like creative-problem solving and out-of-the-box ideas.
It looks like not being afraid to pursue that new thing or wild project.
It looks like coming together to achieve collective goals.
It looks like earnest intention and showing up, even when you don’t feel like it, even when it’s easier to be alone, even when it’s inconvenient...
It looks like empathy, understanding and authenticity.
It looks like giving each other the full gift of your presence without distraction.
It looks like going analog.
It looks like being silly and goofy — weirdos are welcome here.
It looks like meeting yourself fully, maybe for the first time ever, and in the rawness of that, trusting others to meet you and see you too.
When I first rad the Artist’s Way in 2021, I read it by myself.
I had no idea I would turn it into a workshop series or that it would become some of the most fulfilling creative work I’ve ever done, to date. I didn’t know it would fill a spiritually-shaped hole I had been missing since I left religion.
I didn’t even realize, at first, that it had even made a profound impact on me… that is, until my entire life started to change.
I left the evangelical church for good.
I came out as queer (to myself too.)
I allowed myself to finally release friendships and relationships that needed to be let go.
I developed a stronger sense of self and self-worth.
I got divorced.
I moved.
I made new friends.
I opened my art studio (a dream I had since sophomore year of college.)
I began a new, grounded and peaceful, relationship.
I made so much art and I explored where my curiosity led me.
It’s impossible to reduce all of that down to one book, but I can’t deny it made a big impact.
When I opened my art studio I wanted to teach people about art, yes, but more than that I wanted to help people get out of their own way in the creative process and release themselves from the fear and judgment that prevent so many of us from making the art we’re supposed to make, showing up as the people we’re supposed to be, and living the creative lives we’re supposed to live.
I also saw that, like me, so many people were seeking community and third spaces that went beyond the superficial and actually had an ongoing effect in our lives, helping us to become more connected to each other and ourselves.
I’ve learned so much through the honor of facilitating creative community.
This year will be my third year teaching my Artist’s Way series. I call it that because we go through the book together, but it is honestly so much more than that.
We also have deep, rich, beautiful discussion. We enjoy each other’s company and hold one another accountable to staying the course. We do an art project or creative exercise every chapter that corresponds with the reading AND there are ongoing opportunities (even after the series) to invest in one another’s lives, build long-lasting friendships, and have some creative fun…
Because nothing is better than getting to reconnect with your inner child/inner artist self as an adult.
If I can make one wish for you in 2026, it’s that you get to meet your teenage self again and, this time, actually like them.
Registration for my 2026 Artist’s Way workshop series will go live TONIGHT at 8 PM CST.
To learn more about the series, visit my website at Persika Design Co.com - The Artist's Way Workshop
