Beginnings
Welcome to Creative Peers! For our first blog post, we wanted to write something to tell readers about how we sprung into existence. The maintenance crew have been working on Creative Peers since July 2023. We wanted to conjure an environment for artists to chat about the things they encounter as they move through life and encourage people to share their experiences with each other. By pooling the information we have picked up while doing it ourselves, we hope that the creative peers who join the meetings will be able to share their own, as well as take away guidance to help them continue their arts practice.
First thing’s first, we need to share the way we think about Art, to give a feel of what these meetings look like. All artists practice Art because we choose to. We have to exercise our choices like a muscle to be able to trust the way we feel inside and allow it to take us to new places. We can find that we yearn for some things that others do not, and conversely do not need some of the things that others wholly depend on. In our opinion, we are artists from the time we start scribbling, make play dough models and dance in front of the tele. We remain artists because we allow ourselves to continue following these kinds of inclinations.
We don’t have to go to Art school to be an artist, all we have to do is tend to our creative practice. We use the term “practice” because its about the things we do as artists. It appears to be the current standard word that describes the things we make as well as our processes when talking about these things to people who work in the Arts. If we do attend university to study Art, we must always remain aware that we are sold a process that turns us into graduates: not artists. We have to take ownership of this word ourselves and explore what it means to us. It is the things we do, that we continue to do, that make us so.
Earning money from your Art doesn’t have to be a thing that validates it. We find value in the places we set our own worth. As artists, we have to find ways of talking about money and survival strategies. We frame money as a lubricant to practice and consider how to align the things we do for income with our creative practice and vice versa. We are creative people who come up with solutions to problems that are not obvious to everyone else. This is a power that we all have within us. When we take part in Art we are training this tendency and honing our skillset.
We are never a finished product and always a work in progress. As artists we are constantly learning new things as part of our practice, for that reason artists tend to be decent teachers. In turn, we learn in abundance from the creative people around us. Peer led learning is indispensable (even when studying at an institution) because the peers around us are likely to have insight to how the world operates from a perspective similar to our own. We encourage creative peers to view their life experience as a key aspect of their practice, and share these vital ways of working with others. If there is something we do that helps sustain an arts practice, it is likely that other artists can use the same processes to support theirs.
We welcome all artists to join the Creative Peers meetings. From time to time, we will send a personal invitation to a practitioner with more experience to broaden the chat and stimulate questions within us that we may not have considered before. In being artists, we are part of current artistic discourse and this is a space for emerging talent to see themselves within that sphere. As practitioners, we might create things in different mediums, research distinct topics and hone dissimilar craft skillsets; but identical rhythms are found commonly between artists which make us akin to one another.
If artists must follow their own path, we have to create a momentum for ourselves. We are always other things as well as being artists. It is a name that remains with us throughout, even when we have periods of rest or the other parts of our lives demand our attention. The other things we engage in feed us as practitioners; they influence the things we are interested in, and in turn these interests lead us into our practice. We live life forwards but understand it backwards. Whether or not we believe things happen for a reason, we can certainly find reason within the things that happen.
We are curious creatures who act at odds to the way things are “known” to be. An artist strives to gather information that couldn’t be reached without a divergence in thinking from the current social norm. It’s important that we have faith in these tangental ways of thinking because they lead the way toward our points of interest. The flow of hierarchical economics and politics around us is so intense, so sharing a space with creative people who understand our same urges is essential while building a practice robust enough to withstand that pressure. We have to be able to follow our inclinations to continue making and researching. That ability to apply our own choices takes considered, sustained and collected practice.
When we crave to maintain an arts practice, we come up against some real hurdles, and no one is alone in facing them. We all have such similar challenges to tackle: finding the time, affording a studio space, knowing the right people… it can all be just too much! We need a way to approach these challenges in small chunks and in our own time. As we mentioned earlier, artists are a continuous work in progress and we are constantly learning new things. We find ways to solve to problems that are not apparent to other people. So, how can we manifest a space away from these problems in which we can explore our practice where all we have to do is attend?
Over the past 6 months we have forged specific moments in time to which we have committed ourselves to be present. Even when life has been taking over and we have had to spend our time doing other things in order to survive, this hour and a half once a fortnight is enough to remind us that our practice still exists and is thriving. We watch how the things we are creating shift in response to the pressure of the world and it helps to acknowledge those changes in the company of other creative peers.
We recognise the Creative Peers support group has changed massively from the one we first sketched out last summer, and we are mindful of leaving it space to shift and grow in the way it needs. It is a peer led meeting, and the artists who attend will automatically sculpt the shape of the thing over time. Anyone can join by filling in the form on our “sign up” page, and we send everyone on the mailing list an invite link to the Zoom meeting on the scheduled day. Please see our “Meeting Schedule” page for information on the next meeting. We hope you will join us for the next one.
Hans
