Week 4: Make Space for Creativity - No Justification Needed

In this heart-opening episode, we’re talking about the guilt, fear, and perfectionism that often creep into our creative process, and how we’re learning to let them go. From decluttering our spaces to unlearning childhood conditioning, we explore what it means to make room (physically and emotionally) for your creative voice. If you’ve ever felt like you needed a reason to create - or worried your art wasn’t “valid” enough - this one’s for you.
🎧 Listen in for laughter, honesty, and a reminder that your creativity doesn’t need to be justified. It just needs to be yours. 🤍

Thank you so much for listening.

If you know someone who needs this kind of gentle nudge, send it their way. The more kind, creative hearts in this space, the better.

And if something in this episode resonates or makes you smile, come say hi on Instagram @theartpeaceexperiment 🤍

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Art Piece Experiment. We're your hosts, two artists and friends. I'm Tasha. And I'm Brianna. at the end of 2024 we decided we wanted to cultivate more safety peace love alignment and excitement through our art and our art practices so here we are sharing our journey with you and we're so excited you're here we hope you enjoy our conversations they're honest raw just two friends talking to each other about the realities of life and creativity. We're so excited for you to join us and be along with us for the journey. Week four. We made it a whole month. Yay. Yes. And now we get a treat. We do. We do. We are going to be having a writing retreat. Who even am I? I mean, that would be fun too. I have too many writing friends. No, we're having... Oh my gosh. We're having... An artist retreat. An artist retreat. Because we're artists. But, you know, a writing retreat. Who put me in charge? You did. No. Just kidding. You're fired. That would be fun, too, if you wanted to do a writing retreat. I'm down. We were just having a conversation about writing. So, sorry. Anyways, we are having an artist retreat. It's going to be spring break. Yep. Kids are going to be gone on special trips of their own, and we're having little mini staycations and decided to use it for fun. Yeah. So this week, I have been preparing for... what I'm going to do this upcoming week. And a lot of it revolved around cleaning my office, cleaning my space. It was quite the project. It was a journey. We went on it together and it was good. We learned about each other. We did. Which is kind of fun. We did. Actually, it was kind of fun. We learned about ourselves and we learned about each other and kind of what we like and what helps us function you know in the creative juices and don't ever say that again sorry I regretted it as soon as it came out of my mouth um the creative flow is that better yes much better yeah so um yeah do you want to share a little bit about about that about getting your space ready or about what we learned about each other and ourselves oh yes we're like opposites you know the like the like peace sign with the like the yin and yang yes the yin and yang we're like that yeah as far as what we want our creative spaces to be versus what our the end product turns out to be yeah so we found out through much trial and error, that I like my desk to be full of all of my knickknacks and a little bit cluttered. So many things. Yeah, full of all of my things that inspire me and bring memories with it and are meaningful to me. I really love it. You're a maximalist queen. For my desk, yes. And For my artwork, it's wide open, plain spaces. Yeah, big, wide open landscapes. That just don't have, yeah, a lot of clutter in them, which is really interesting. And then for you... Don't put stuff on my desk, please. Let it be open. I need room for what I'm working on. And if anything else is there... it gets the angry eye the angry eyes how dare you be in here with me while I'm working you notebook or whatever it is get out yes I like I have two desks that are like I mean they're just like Ikea you know white desks that are in this corner that you know, like this L shape, creating this L shape. And I like them to just be blank and open, which not very aesthetic, you know, not great that way, but it just, it helps clear my mind. It helps put me in the space of like, I am free to just create whatever it is I want to create. And then I create these very detailed little things. Tiny little moments. Tiny little moments that are sometimes cluttered and detailed. Yeah. And also, yeah, maximalist patterns and like all the, yeah, all the details, all the little things in there. Yeah. So yeah, that was a kind of a fun realization where it was just like, oh, we are very opposite in this. Very opposite. Yeah. It was really fun. It was really fun. And it was funny because I was, I was helping Brianna get her space ready for the retreat because she had some other projects and just like home renovation stuff happening in there that was like we had to clear it out of the office and get it ready and super helpful she was really helpful and she was complaining to me previous to this of like ah my space was so like there's so much stuff that I just can't get my you know like I can't get the work done and it was like it was very much a block yeah blocking you so I get in there and I'm like okay then I start just clearing off the desk and Brianna starts panicking

SPEAKER_01: 6:27

what

SPEAKER_00: 6:28

are you doing but to me it was like okay you you need space to work so here you go like here's some space like get your desk ready and then and then we um It provided a way to dust, which was great. We got some dusting done. It was good. And then we put everything back. We did. We rearranged it into a new, nice, beautiful way. And then I was like, I don't like it. I can't work in this space because it felt too empty and not... me which is it was just so weird which is funny because putting what we did put back was like to me was like this is a lot of stuff yeah right and I was like it's so empty I was like I don't know how to even respond to that so yeah we ended up putting most of the things back I mean we did take out some of the things that didn't actually really feel good that were in there, you know, and that didn't really need to be in there and that I didn't like that just had been there. And so that was good to get those things out, but it ended up not being a huge difference and not a huge change, just kind of tidying up a little bit and, and dusting and dusting. The dusting was good. That was helpful. You don't want dust in your paintings. Yeah, no, not a good mix. So that was, uh, that was good. She's not a dirty person. Just clarify that. It was just like dusting is one of those things that needs to happen regularly it was it was just that just just to clarify here thank you appreciate that she's not like I'm just thinking of like you go into like the beast's castle and like his room and it's just like dust like you like step and like dust poofs up like no that's not like that was not the situation thank you appreciate that um yeah so we did that and uh And yeah, I think that opened up the lane for some mental clarifying and decluttering around blocks around what's been keeping me from wanting to make art, wanting to sit down and actually do the thing. Yeah. And that was really helpful too. I did some journaling about that and yeah. realized that my art is really connected to my moods and my emotions and like the things that i'm processing which i feel like is just universal you know like a human thing we we kind of process through that that way our creativity of expressing yeah exactly and so um Realizing that that was so connected and that I, there are things that I've been wanting to not look at and not deal with and not, you know, sit with and, and face. And so. Right. I think that's been a big block, which was really helpful to kind of recognize and see and be able to be able to face, you know? Yeah. That's huge. Yeah. I mean, that is huge. And I feel like it's so. relatable i'm not i don't know that everyone necessarily gets to the point that they're thinking about it that way.

SPEAKER_01: 10:12

It's

SPEAKER_00: 10:13

like, you know, you want to create, but you're just not always sure why. And we get these blocks and sometimes it's, you know, physical and sometimes it's emotional and, you know, different things going on and kind of get to a point of like beating ourselves up that we didn't do that thing that we've been dreaming about doing or wanting to do. And we're not entirely sure why, but we don't always just like break it down sometimes into those little steps of like, you know, maybe you need to make some space on your desk or, you know, on your, wherever it is, you know, your sewing table or, you know, for me, kitchen counters. Yeah. Kitchen counters are like, just like making that little like space for yourself. You know, whether it is in that physical space or, you know, that emotional mental space. Yeah. Yeah. Space where it's like, you just get, kind of real with yourself or like just take those first few steps forward. I mean, that's sometimes totally necessary. Yeah. Like there's sometimes some prep work. Right. To, you know, getting to the creative freedom. Yeah. Being able to actually get into that zone and actually take the steps forward. I feel like that's a lesson that we have been learning over the past several years of, or at least I'll speak for myself. We're not quick studies. Just learn it over and over again. Yep. But like speaking for myself, I know that's something that I have really struggled with is like, I've wanted to do you know, I wanted this to be an artist and to sell my artwork and like to really have like that creative outlet and to be consistent and have a creative practice for so many years, so many years and still struggling to make it actually happen, you know? Yeah. And I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm doing it more than I ever have, but it still feels like a struggle in a lot of ways and a lot of days, you know, are, are hard or, I don't want to do it or, you know, I don't know. There's like some reason. And so it definitely takes time to unravel all of that. Yeah. And to come to recognize it and be able to. rewire and retrain your brain and, you know, um, and your nervous system to feel like it's safe. Yeah. And I think that was really the whole point of this experiment that we are doing is that we wanted to figure out how to make it feel safe and to make it feel joyful and, um, to retrain, you know, our, our nervous system and our brains in, in that way. And what works for us specifically, like having a cluttered desk versus not a cluttered desk, you know, like how do we create that atmosphere, you know, physically, and then how do we create that atmosphere mentally? Right. What are the ways that work for us specifically? And so that's, that's really what this, um, this whole thing is about. And I feel like even though I didn't actually draw this last week or make any art, I feel like it was still such a huge win in the whole theme of the experiment because it was a huge discovery. Took steps toward it and in healing and growth, which is so powerful. And both of us, we grew up being taught that expressing ourselves was either not safe or not there wasn't always a full openness to that and sometimes that you know, like art is expression. And so when you're told, like you have to like kind of hold in and suppress parts of yourself that way, it translates to other areas of your life. Or only do it in a certain way or perfectionism, you know, which I know a lot of women, especially relate to that. Yeah. And I feel like it's a lot of the times, well, okay, maybe it's just because I talked to a lot of, I don't know, I talked to a lot of men too. But, you know, there is that kind of holding yourself in, like holding yourself back from, I don't know, like sharing those beautiful parts of yourself and like that expression because we're so busy. um like guilting ourselves into all the other responsibilities or things that we have to take care of or people that we have to take care of and expectations yeah and then roles yeah and then this idea of like us expressing and beautifying and all of that is just selfish um And I think that's part of the prep work is letting that go and figuring out how to move on from that

SPEAKER_01: 15:56

and

SPEAKER_00: 15:57

creating that space for yourself of like, no, like what I'm doing, you know, in painting or singing or baking or, you know, whatever it is. It's like it's making the world better and it's blessing the people around you. And I feel like I talk about this every time, but it's so important. And part of that is because I have so many friends throughout my life at different stages. These wonderful women with so much creativity inside them, and they're just holding it in and not allowing themselves the space to to let that free so I know I I just love that so much it's something that I'm still very much learning and it it's hard to unlearn all of that because it's so it's so inundated in like everything that we are around, you know, our whole culture, right. Doesn't value creativity just for creative creativity sake. There has to be some sort of external reason. Yeah. Right. And so just expressing yourself just to express yourself is not universally accepted or, or valued. Right. Right. And so it's really hard to, to, I think, even recognize all of the ways that we feel that. I think that's just an ongoing journey. You know, I think it's, I don't know that it's, you have arrived yet. You know, it's just like, it's like, it's going to be continuing on probably forever. And so, yeah, for sure. It's, it's hard to, it's hard to recognize that. And I think, beginning to recognize that as a feat in and of itself. And, and then coming to, you know, the next step, which is letting that go. Yeah. That's a hard one too. That's really tied into so many things, you know, self-worth like perfectionism. We bring that up all the time, but like, yeah, worrying about what others think, people pleasing, you know, and expectations and just all the things with the nervous system and feeling that sense of safety and needing your tribe to like you and, you know, like all of that stuff. It goes so deep. So deep. So deep. It's not as simple as just, you know, Yeah. Right. and often why I like it even you know yeah because I mean just think about conversations you've had with like anybody that you know especially women okay right let's be real here especially women who do who do like indulge yeah I say indulge and I don't actually mean it that way but you know like but that's how it's seen that's how it seems it's like they indulge in that and they have to tell a story justifying it almost every single time and it Can't always just be because I want to, because it's, you know, because it's fun. Because it lights me up. Yeah, it makes me feel more alive. There's just so much judgment surrounding those kind of things. Yeah, yeah, because I'm thriving. You know, this thing helps me thrive. What if we just lived our lives in a way that we thrived instead of just survived? What would that look like

SPEAKER_01: 20:21

if

SPEAKER_00: 20:21

every single person decided that they wanted to thrive in life? Yeah. I mean, that's what got me back into doing art is when I became a mom and I was holding this sweet, perfect little person. And I just looked at her and just felt so much love and and possibility

SPEAKER_01: 20:46

and

SPEAKER_00: 20:47

was so excited to meet you know who whoever she turned out to be like there's just there's just so much excitement and love there and then realizing that I didn't hold that for myself and realizing that I was not the person I wanted to be as far as an example

SPEAKER_01: 21:11

for her,

SPEAKER_00: 21:12

because I wasn't living my truth. I wasn't living being myself and, you know, my full expression and all of that. And it was like, Oh, I'm going to start sketching again, which to some people might sound really silly, but that was, that is such a huge part of who I am. Yeah. And I am not living my full self without that. You know, like I just, I just, I need, I need to be creative. And I wanted to be that example to my daughter of, you know, living, uh, thriving. Yeah. You know, thriving and, and which means, you know, living in alignment with who I am. Um, yeah. And art is a big part of that. Yeah. Creativity. Yeah. I mean, like we said before, we are all, we were created to create. Like creativity is just a part of us, all of us, you know? And what does that look like for you? It looks like different things for different people. And even within the same thing, you know, like you and I both, love the, like the visual arts, but we do it in different ways, you know? So even it's just, everyone is so individual and everyone has their own story and their own way of resonating and, um, connecting with, with that and with themselves, you know, and, and, and it is worthwhile for, for every single person to connect with themselves in that way and to, um, express themselves and what a gift right what a gift it is that we each have that ability and that um that chance to express ourselves and connect in that way because we connect through creativity

SPEAKER_01: 23:13

we do

SPEAKER_00: 23:13

we connect through each other's creativity and that's really what i think we said this last time that's what makes life worth living yeah so why not You know? Yeah. Why not be creative and express ourselves and cultivate this sense of safety and this culture of safety around creativity?

UNKNOWN: 23:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 23:44

That's it for today, friend. Thanks for spending this time with us. We hope you're leaving with a little more light, a little more peace, and maybe even a nudge to go be creative just because it brings a little more joy to your life. If anything in this episode spoke to your heart, sparked a thought, or made you smile, we'd love it if you'd follow the show, leave a quick five-star review, or share it with someone who might need a little creative encouragement too. And remember, your creativity matters. Your voice matters. You matter. We're cheering you on Always until next time, keep making, keep softening and keep showing up as your whole beautiful self.