What communities invite you to inhabit your true self?
This is the question I prompted in
my newsletter this week. I wanted to share the post here as well.
When I was in college, a friend of mine started hosting Pinot & Poetry nights in her apartment. A shoddy group of us nixed the house parties to instead gather on Saturday night in various states of disarray - young, stressed, overly or underly emotive. We sat on the floor and we listened to each other’s art - poetry, music, fiction - the stuff we wrote or practiced in dorm rooms or childhood bedrooms. We were only just learning we had something to say. Our voices were still full of clichés and we hid our vulnerability in abstractions. But it was glorious. Life-giving. Spirit-stirring.
In the 1930s, at 27 Rue de Fleurus in Paris, lived a writer critics dismissed as incomprehensible.
Gertrude Stein opened her doors for creatives to gather around the fire, peruse her art collection, and exchange ideas. Here, Ernest Hemingway met F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound. Stein gleaned writing inspiration from her painter friends -
Picasso and Matisse. This community took each other’s abnormal (at the time) experimentations seriously. They mentored and supported each other, seeking truth and beauty through art in the wake of World War I.
Even more powerful was
“the sisterhood,” some of the most prominent Black female writers, with a bond deep as blood, meeting in 1977 in a Brooklyn apartment over gumbo, champagne, and poems. Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, Audre Lorde, and others gathered to discuss not just literature, but also liberation. Together, they advocated for Black writers in publishing and academia. They ran up against racism, sexism, and homophobia, but with each other to draw strength from. They celebrated, elevated, and supported each others’ voices. Each other’s value. The necessity of their stories.
Maybe we would have still received countless historical works from these artists, even if they were creating alone. But how incredible that they didn’t have to.
Some of my favorite moments of being a human on this planet are moments of creative community. Moments in which I can tap into a deep thrum of collective energy, fed by connection, and contextualized by compassion. Which is why I am so thrilled to launch The Creative Common Room this February.
We meet online every Saturday from 9 to 10:30 AM Central Time to ritualize our creative practice.
Sessions begin with guided grounding in breath and body. We then transition to setting personal aims for the session. If you're looking to experiment, there are prompts and exercises provided. After our solo making time, we link back up to share inspiration, resources, and insights.
To learn more or sign up to join,
click here. Please also reach out with any questions, comments, or concerns! I would love to connect.
I encourage you to search elsewhere for your group of creative kindreds! Finding the right group for you to be nurtured, inspired, and maybe even challenged is a worthy endeavor.
