Photo by Nelson Luna Today is my last day at CreativeMornings. Without hyperbole, these past two years have been the happiest of my adult working life. I genuinely get to show up to work and spark creativity, joy, and play. I’ve taught people how to look at art, how to make zines, and how to be their bravest selves and put their creations out into the world. And I became a writer, something I had never imagined for myself. Thank you Tina, for manifesting your belief that work can be a playground for your future self. Because of what you and the CMHQ team have created, I get to walk into my future with bounding steps. Today I am full of equal parts grief and gratitude, for having been the steward of something so precious and now learning to let it go. As a parting gift, here are some ...

Our August theme is Pride, chosen by our Palm Beach chapter and illustrated by Kayla Griffin. Pride is a celebration of our truest, radiant selves and a defiance against those who expect us to dim our own light. We live in a world that often encourages us to take up less space, to conceal the parts of ourselves that can’t be easily commodified or consumed. Or worse, what we reveal exposes us to oppressive actors and systems who steal away our dignity. Pride is a powerful affirmation of authenticity. It gives us the grace to show up as ourselves and live in alignment with our values. It embraces every shade of our longings, our regrets, and our hopes — these beautiful and powerful things that make us who we are. Pride is when you stand tall and say, “This is who I am.” Pride is when...

Our July theme is Treasure, chosen by our Brisbane chapter, illustrated by Spectator Jonze, and presented by Mailchimp. Treasure takes many forms, both physical and intangible. Yours may be a ring that has been passed down to you from your ancestors. A hidden spring of water in a parched land. The budding, implicit trust of a new friend. New photographs of the wider galaxy, full of iridescent swirls of matter and light. The ruins of a people from a faraway time and place. Our instinct is to clutch them tightly. We seal our treasures in glass cases, to preserve them from time’s decay, to display them as testaments to our worth. We fear their loss, yet in this fear, we lose our ability to cherish them. We must soften our grip and magnify our time spent in their presence, precisel...

Our June theme is Reverie, chosen by our Omaha chapter and illustrated by Eduardo Gardea. When your gaze softens around the edges, where does your mind travel? What thoughts arise unbidden? Reverie beckons us to dream while awake, spinning loose associations that seem to emerge from somewhere not entirely inside or outside of you. Our woolgathering summons past memories and nascent fantasies. We turn them over and over, like smooth stones in our hand, making meaning. Neuroscientists have found that daydreaming ignites your brain’s default mode network. Counterintuitively, this unfocused part of the mind is where many creative breakthroughs take place — think Archimedes‘ fluid mechanics in a bathtub and Newton’s gravity under the apple tree. When you’re not preoccupied with solving a...

Our May theme is Acceptance, chosen by our Lexington chapter and illustrated by Robert Beatty. Acceptance is the act of surrendering to our reality, without judgment or fear. There are many things in our lives that cause us discomfort or pain. We attempt to change or resist them, to no effect. So we wave a big stick, keeping them at bay like a wounded animal. Acceptance is weaving into your story what once caused you pain — and still might, to this day. You welcome that creature into your home, tend to its wounds, and feed it out of your hand. Acceptance is knowing that this feral animal lives side by side with your tender house cat of a heart, always. Embracing what cannot change can help you gather the energy to change what must. Accept these truths: you cannot make another person...

Our April theme is Movement, chosen by our Wellington chapter, illustrated by Hannah Webster, and presented by Mailchimp. The body in motion is a thing of beauty. Our cells shake kinetic energy through the finely articulated instruments of muscle, ligament, and bone. We blink, we pulse, we dance. Some even pull off feats of human athleticism and daring, from which we can hardly look away. Movement is a universal state of being. Even at rest, the matter we’re composed of is in motion — subatomic particles whir about at dizzying speeds, to create the sense of solidity. The things that appear still — the earth beneath us, the trunk of a tree above us, is but a trick of the eye. They move slowly but at a staggering scale. When we move together, we can build social and collective movement...

Across the Zoom grid, I spotted someone holding up a gorgeous illustration paired with a C.S. Lewis quote. We were at the end of a FieldTrip where we had looked at art “like a pirate”, and our master facilitator Rachel Ropeik had us make drawings to “thank” the painting we had looked at. When I couldn’t puzzle out the words in the virtual square, I asked for the full quote in the chat. The responder had the Sketchbook Skool logo as their Zoom avatar. Lo and behold, it was their founder, Danny Gregory — a personal hero of mine. Danny Gregory’s sketch of a glass half full and the C.S. Lewis quote “You are never too old to set a new goal or to dream a new dream.” Sketchbook Skool played a huge role in helping me set up my creative practice. In 2021, I started ...

Our March theme is Corruption, chosen by our Monterrey chapter and illustrated by Violeta Hernández. Corruption can start innocently, like favoring someone you know over someone you don’t. Or recalling a gift they once sent, and repay them with a project for that sweetness. Corruption is a spectrum, rewarding social connections and financial advantages over the rules of fair play. It exists in every society and every institution. Some people survive through corruption, the labyrinthine bureaucracies where they live making it literally impossible otherwise. But while they survive, others perish. Rising plumes of toxic chemicals, collapsing buildings not constructed to code, we owe the calamities all around us to those who cared more about profit than people and gain over the greater g...

Our February theme is Touch, chosen by our Lisbon chapter and illustrated by Emma Lopes. Across the years when we had to stay apart to keep one another safe, skin hungered for the sensation of being pressed against another. The longing for touch was deeply felt. Unlike sight or sound, the senses we primarily rely on for information, touch cannot be conveyed across distance through screens and speakers. Touch invites us to slow down, pay attention, and come closer. When we open ourselves to the ineffable — what cannot be transmitted through words — touch emerges as a language unto itself. The grit of the soil under our bare feet, the clay slip enrobing a potter’s wheel, the sun-warmed fur of a beloved pet — these sensations can be healing. How will you stay in contact with the elec...

Our January theme is Sanctuary, chosen by our Sheffield chapter, illustrated by Lisa Maltby, and presented by Mailchimp. You can stop running now, you are safe here. A sanctuary offers protection to those who are vulnerable: those who are fleeing violence, those who have been cast off and told there is no place for them there, even animals whose habitats have disappeared. Here is a place where you can finally lay your head down and rest. The original meaning of sanctuary was a sacred place, containing a holy relic or person. A sanctuary recognizes that each of us, no matter where we have came from or what we’ve done, and our needs — for a full belly, for a roof, for safety, to be free from worry — are inviolable and whole. Where is it that you find refuge? What happens to your body w...

Our December theme is Abundance, chosen by our Santa Fe chapter and illustrated by Neebinnaukzhik Southall. Abundance is a state of plenty. In an intensely competitive society, we often feel like we have the opposite. Capitalism breeds a mentality of scarcity — it’s hard to feel like we have enough when we’re constantly trying to accumulate more. Gratitude magnifies our experience of abundance. When we marvel at the taste of ripe summer fruit, juice bursting from its skin. When we set a table, a seat for every person we cherish, and bathe in the radiance. Generosity multiplies abundance. When we prioritize mutual flourishing over private stockpiling, plant ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer posits, “the practice for dealing with abundance is to give it away.” Once you stop hoarding what...

Let’s be honest: finding something creative to give to our loved ones can stress out even the most talented gift givers among us. We asked you and your fellow newsletter readers to help – and wow, did you rise to the challenge! We received so many recommendations that made us giddy with delight imagining if we unwrapped them for ourselves. What’s more, you sourced many of these gift ideas from companies that are run by women and BIPOC business owners, operate with sustainable practices, and lift up makers around the world. So without further ado, let’s unfurl the inaugural CreativeMornings gift guide, a mix of products curated by HQ and YOU! *This product was sourced from a reader recommendation. ◊This product is from a woman-owned company and/or a BIPOC-owned company. Make Somethin...

Our November theme is Truth, chosen by our Buenos Aires chapter and illustrated by Sol Cotti. Truth lies at the bottom of a well, winding from its source in the icepack of distant mountains. Truth tastes pristine, uncompromised by what would be profitable or convenient. Truth causes your body to hum like a tuning fork, resonating at the same frequency as the universe around you. “When you experience an undeniable truth,” writer and social worker Jessica Dore observes, “you will beg, borrow, and steal. You will rearrange your whole life, forsake everything, just to serve what is real.” And yet the truth is fiercely contested when competing narratives collide. We forge our truth in a crucible, testing its strength through heat and hammering. Instead of smashing our convictions against ...

Our October theme is Ethos, chosen by our Asheville chapter and illustrated by Colin Sutherland. Ethos is that specific quality that defines a place, time, or group of people. When you step into a room, a busy downtown, or a community gathering, you intuit its spirit. A messy DIY space invites experimentation and mistakes, a lush city park promises tranquility to anyone who seeks it. Maybe you even know of a monthly event where everyone is welcome and everything is free of charge. At its core is a paradox: despite the specificity of an ethos, it’s impossible to pinpoint or trace to a specific origin. What honed that distinctive sensibility is long gone, vanished into myth. With our actions and words, we embody these values and beliefs beyond conscious knowing. In turn, we subtly sh...

Hello morning people! The last two years posed interesting experiments for us. We tinkered with translating the IRL magic of CreativeMornings into virtual and the local, global. Along the way, we “traveled” to faraway chapters from around the world and learned how to give hugs and high fives on Zoom. Our small in-person FieldTrips blossomed into a global learning community of thousands. As we continue to evolve what it means to experience the heart of CreativeMornings, we wondered, “What if we could take what has grown expansive and global — and make it hyper-local again?” So when our friends at the creative nonprofit Street Wisdom asked to join forces for a 24-hour around-the-world relay of their magical walkshops (i.e., walking workshops), we said YES. Together, we’re so excited to i...

Our September theme is Depth, chosen by our Columbus chapter and illustrated by Bryan Christopher Moss. Depth is a measure of distance. Get a feel for it by traveling along a rock fissure that tunnels into the earth, stepping across the expanse between our galaxy and the next, or diving into the mysteries hidden within ourselves. Depth is a space that denies easy ways of seeing or comprehending — when we shine a light into the deep blue of the ocean, we cannot see much further than the surface. In our age of instant answers, we bristle at this resistance. It’s often easier to reduce people, places, and ideas into flattened renderings, rather than grapple with the nuanced and contradictory truths found in their depths. In what depths could you submerge yourself if you let curiosity ...

Our August theme is Critical, chosen by our Calgary chapter, illustrated by Maedeh Mosaverzadeh, and presented by Mailchimp. To be critical means to be like a sieve, dividing and separating. Our critical abilities allows us to discern the insubstantial from the made-to-last, the credible from the untrustworthy, the sincere from the ego-driven. We do so by gathering more information, seeking nuance, and locating something in its specific context. Critical feedback is essential for our growth. Poet Adrienne Rich advises, “Responsibility to yourself means seeking out criticism, recognizing that the most affirming thing anyone can do for your is demand that you push yourself further.” But being needlessly critical — especially of ourselves — can stifle the creative impulse. Few are as h...

Our July theme is Spirituality, chosen by our Jeddah chapter, and illustrated by Bayan Yasien. Spirituality is the search for our deepest values and meanings, something that touches us all. It is our yearning to peel back the curtain on the world we can see. The word comes from the Latin spiritualis, meaning “of breath, wind, and air.” It comes so naturally it might as well be breathing. Spirituality can be found in meditation, in science, in holy spaces, in music, in community. We locate the sacred in the stars that guide us home, our capacity to love both kin and stranger, the divine that gathers in the kitchen dustpans and the forest groves lit by fireflies. Through spiritual practice — be it by prayer mat or paint brush, microscope or movement — we seek answers to the eternal qu...