On Wednesdays, I share articles related to various aspects of the creative health landscape and at the end of those articles, I share links to other articles you might like.
Why? Because other people’s words can provide a different perspective on a similar topic or a similar perspective in a different way.
And because I like to do what I can to share the work of others to help move it through the world towards the people who are meant to come across it. Especially when it’s an older piece from someone that I can perhaps bring new eyes to.
Here are the links I shared in March’s articles with a quote from each one … do go read the ones that inspire you!
In the Messy Middle
In relation to my article:
Quotes I loved from others:
From juliette crane:
“I’ve never been able to begin a painting on a blank canvas. I always start by making a mess—squeezing out a few colors of ink or paint and smudging them together with brushes, palette knives, or even just my hands. I don’t think about what it’s going to become. I just follow the color.
It’s like I have to release control first. Let the chaos in. Let the colors run and bleed and pool. And then, only later, do I start shaping things into something more intentional—letting the layers build, allowing old parts to peek through. That’s where the magic happens.”
From Vanessa Aldrich:
“Then there is the liminal artist. Liminality is essential and it always sucks. Liminality is the important stage where the artist belongs to the stage of not-belonging to anything, they have been sufficiently stripped, ego in a straight jacket, the soul is air-drying before donning the next thing. The liminal artist needs to be. Here the artist-in-waiting is no longer student (thank god) and is not yet inheritor (thank god), no longer initiate but not yet graduate. One has to be here to allow to uncomfortable pregnancy of being “unfinished” to reach it’s critical point of asking for their own completion.”
and …
“We cannot linger in this liminal space, nor can we take the incorrect path out of it. By design, liminality is a resting place that then turns into quicksand. It’s what we do when it becomes quickstand that counts. Liminality invites us to enter creative maturity by forcing us to make some declaration.”
From Nancy Reddy
“If you’re lost in the morass of a word document, it can help to switch medium. A printed draft is easier to grapple with and mark up; you can cut it, tape it back together, and scrawl in the margins. I often find that if I can see the whole thing at once, as a set of pages spread out on the bed or taped to a wall, I can see where I’m circling the same idea or where I’ve managed to avoid, even over 6000 words, saying the thing I’m really trying to say.”
and:
“If the blank screen itself is stressing you out, switch to hand-writing. If a whole notebook page is too much, I’ll try a post-it or an index card.”
From Erin Gregory (about Catherine Lang-Cline:
“For Catherine, writing was not just about creating a product; it was about reclaiming her creative rhythm after years of leading others. The process reminded her that growth often looks like slowing down, reassessing, and rebuilding with intention.”
From Gregory Ng:
“Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” It’s a statement that resonates far beyond the boundaries of art and into the core of human existence. For many of us, life can feel like a canvas smeared with half-completed brushstrokes and unfinished projects. In midlife, especially, it’s common to confront the stark realization that some of our goals, dreams, or passions may never fully materialize in the ways we imagined. Yet, in that realization lies an opportunity to reframe our understanding of creativity, success, and fulfillment.”
Revealing and Concealing
In relation to my article:
Quotes I loved from others:
From Julie Bancroft:
“For a moment when I started putting up the work, I had a flash of panic: why did I make work like this? Why use my work to externalise and examine what was inside me? Why put myself in this position?
The answer is: because this was the only way I had.”
From Florence Given:
“As much as people may mock those of us who courageously share our work, their reactions tend to come from a deep frustration they feel with themselves. When they look at you, they see every dream they gave up on because they themselves had their enthusiasm shamed out of them by miserable bullies, were too embarrassed to try or waited for permission to pursue their dreams. When they look at you giving it a go, they see every idea they ever gave up on.”
From Kenda Lee:
“Give yourself space for self-care. Be intentional about knowing what else is going on in your life. Share when you are feeling as healthy as possible, when you are rested, when your are feeling stable in your purpose. Don’t wait for circumstances to be perfect! They never will be! But do be aware of all the factors of your life that add to feeling vulnerable and impact how you can take care of yourself.”
From Sophie Nicholls:
“Fear of embarrassment or being uncool can be a very real barrier to our creativity, I think. Worrying that people will laugh at us or thinking we’re taking ourselves too seriously (the ‘who does she think she is?’ thought) can prevent us from expressing, sharing, connecting and we really need one another right now.
As Oliver herself says here: Poetry is ‘very old. It’s very sacred. It wishes for a community — it’s a community ritual, certainly. And that’s why, when you write a poem, you write it for anybody and everybody. And you have to be ready to do that out of your single self. It’s a giving. It’s always — it’s a gift. It’s a gift to yourself, but it’s a gift to anybody who has a hunger for it.’”
From Heather Lanier
“Meanwhile, my creativity is playing hide and seek. But this is fine—she has never responded well to the sharp-pointed determination of masculine success. Whenever I think I’ve figured out how to lasso her into productivity, she slips through the rope, turns plasmatic. She winks at me, asks me to rest. She sashays away from me, beckoning with flaunty hips to follow into gardens or museums. She weeps behind me, whispers for me to listen. She is a very weird roommate in the house of my being. I honor her first, though, because in the end, she has always saved me.”
Creative Reinvention
In relation to my article:
Quotes I loved from others:
From James McCrae:
“Creativity is a safe place to try on new identities to see how they fit. There are no rules. You are under no obligation to be consistent with the person you were yesterday. To be human is to be a microcosm of the cosmos. We contain multitudes. The artist is not a solid, static being. The artist is fluid, like water, moving with the tides and changing form as our curiosity and instinct take us in new directions.”
From Stephanie Hargrave via Beverly Aarons:
“Two quintessential influences, Louise Bourgeois and Lee Bontecou, were exceptional examples of women who were not afraid to pivot. They both embraced painting, sculpture, realism, abstraction, the rough and the refined, the sexual (intended or not) and the asexual, light, dark, large, small, paper, canvas, metal, clay. They disregarded what was expected in favor of having full creative freedom, and neither embraced any one category. They pivoted whenever they saw fit.”
From Sara Beth Baca via Kirby Laing Centre:
“Perhaps it’s not the outer shifting of an artist’s work that holds the most weight but the inner transformation that remains unseen. That burning off of the old self and the welcoming of the new is a risk we artists take. Hoping to bring what’s underneath the surface into the light, old mindsets and methods are cast off as we step tremulously into the unknown. But as we take that chance of exposure, of being seen for who we are, we give our audience the courage to do the same.
From Kate Kern Mundie:
“Artistic style is often described as the unique visual language an artist develops over time. It encompasses elements such as brushwork, color choices, composition, and the way subjects are represented. However, style is not static—it evolves as an artist’s experiences, influences, and techniques expand.”
From Aurora Hutchinson:
“There’s a unique clarity that comes through writing, not necessarily in tidy narratives, but in raw, unfiltered moments. For me, stream-of-consciousness writing helped me access emotions I couldn’t otherwise name. During times of grief, especially in the final year of my mom’s life and afterwards, poetry became a lifeline. It allowed me to express what was beyond words — what lived in the body and in the heart.”
From Estee Zales:
“I want to stay a beginner forever. Once you develop a style, it develops you back: clingy, possessive, calling at odd hours, showing up uninvited, shedding on the furniture. A style wants commitment. It wants you to mean it. It starts correcting you mid-stroke, whispering: that’s not what we do anymore. It has opinions about paper quality. It knows which colors are yours. It begins to narrow the world into things that fit and things that don’t. Eventually, you’re not making art anymore, you’re just maintaining a personality.
You become hostage to your own alleged vision. So I keep resetting: new influence, new technique, new beginner’s luck.”
From Shagun Singh:
“For some artists, second acts are born out of adversity. Amy Sherald’s career took an unexpected turn when she had to step away from her art to undergo a heart transplant and care for ill family members. After a four-year hiatus, she returned to painting and won the National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition4. This win led to her being selected to paint the iconic portrait of Michelle Obama, which became a career-defining moment. Sherald’s second act illustrates how life’s difficulties can lead to periods of personal and professional resurgence.”
Decision Fatigue
In relation to my article:
Quotes I loved from others:
From Anugrah:
“Have you ever had those days when you’d sunk into the hunkered hollow of your numbness about tiny things like what to wear for work, no genuine idea what to cook for dinner, yet still what movie to watch, what food to order or bigger decisions like which house to buy? You are aware that you have to make decisions; soon execute the plan, but the deadening effect sucks out all the life’s glory in that very moment.
This is decision fatigue.”
From Julie Crosby:
“I see the same kind of mental exhaustion all over the entertainment industry right now. Writers, directors, producers, crew. Smart, capable people who are worn down by constant decision-making. Not on set or in the rehearsal room, but in their own careers.
Every day features a parade of micro-choices. Take the meeting or skip it. Chase the opportunity or ignore it. Pivot formats. Learn that new platform. Rebrand. Wait. Push. Follow up. Pull back. Post it. Don’t post it. Say “yes”. Say “no”. Say “WTF!” (and schedule time to later regret it).
No wonder everyone is tired. They’re producing their careers without a creative brief.”
From Wendy MacNaughton:
“Like life, a lot of making art is making decisions. We start the moment we decide we want to make something. Then we decide what we want to make. Then how we want to make it. Next how to approach it. Maybe what surface to use. What medium to select, what light to use, if we want to introduce color or not… then onto decisions about every single line, dot, stroke, erasure… all of it.
A bazillion decisions go into every drawing. And each decision narrows our path, helping us navigate forward. If we don’t have any restrictions to butt up against, it’s almost impossible to start making something, let alone finish.”
From Emily Abbate:
“I lean into low impact choices, as I like to call them, as a form of procrastination. It’s commonplace for me to spend 45 minutes filling my Nuuly for the month, while a major project or to-do sits untouched. I’m leaning into the non-essentials regularly, which gives me a false sense of control. In 2026, the goal is to do this less by creating a system to escape analysis paralysis.”
Who You Were Before
In relation to my article:
Quotes I loved from others:
From The Creative Life:
“To get back to something, you have to face starting again.
Yes, we resist it — because starting again always feels like going backwards.
There’s that residue of regret, for all the things we haven’t done, but feel we could have.But to make a fresh start, we can’t forget the fresh part of it.
Starting again is tough — but it’s also an act of bravery.”
From DonYé Taylor:
“Being the “girl with the camera” in school made me cool and allowed me to become the editor of my high school yearbook. It was my first taste of documenting life. And despite the success it brought me, I still felt guilty every time I took it to school, and decades later that belief still lives in my creative habits.
So when you see post my work and be loud and blatant about my gifts and the things I can do, not only is it a display of my talent but it’s a result of a lot of personal work & healing because that wasn’t always easy for me.”
From Angelica Jade Bastién:
“In the wake of one of the most difficult years of my life, I have spent a lot of time feeling like a failure creatively. Words were escaping me, providing not a lick of the catharsis and freedom I have found on the page most of my life. I was coming up against the limits of language and my approach to it.1 This called me to actually take fucking care of myself, revamp my writing process, and commit myself more consciously to the care of craft.2 But it also required me to ponder more deeply my commitment to writing.”
From Carolyn Caple Moor
“Before loss, creativity was our language. We painted our joy, wrote our observations, sang our hearts. Our art was how we processed the world, how we made sense of beauty and chaos alike. Then death rewrites everything, and suddenly we can’t find the words. The colors look flat. The melodies feel hollow.
This isn’t just writer’s block or artistic drought. This is grief hijacking the very neural pathways that once sparked inspiration. When we’re in survival mode, the brain prioritizes basic functioning over creative expression. Beauty becomes irrelevant when you’re just trying to breathe.”
From last month:
Thanks for including my work in there!
Thank you for the mention!