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Creating with Kiddos w/ Rey Ward
17 Plays2 years ago
My guest today is Rey Ward, a youth development professional who uses art and creativity as part of a trauma-informed practice when serving young clients. Working with kids has taught them infinite lessons on seeing beauty in imperfection and finding healing in the process rather than the result. We talk about how creativity gives us space to run free and get our brain zoomies out—because we’re just a bunch of weird little animals after all—and how kids need that unstructured space to let go of the perfectionism that’s already ingrained in them at such a young age.
There is this compulsion to treat art like an assignment—How do I do it? What are the rules?—and we talk about the freedom that comes along with reframing your worldview to see that there are no rules in creativity (or in life). We have the freedom to make this life what we want it to be. So how can we connect to those parts of ourselves that want to roam? How can we center those parts of ourselves that are often pushed to the wayside? What do you really want and how do you want to express yourself? We discuss how ugly art has helped us start to find these answers for ourselves.
References:
Favianna Rodriguez on Instagram @favianna1
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Transcript
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome
Introduction to Ugly Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
to the Ugly Podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Alexander, she, they, and this is the place where creatives are encouraged to make messy, ugly art and let go of perfectionism.
00:00:14
Speaker
I started this podcast with my creative partner, Emerson, and we've since grown into our businesses. And this podcast is now evolving into a space where I interview other creatives to discuss our creative processes and how we navigate the mental mind field of creativity. This podcast serves as a reminder that you and your art get to be whatever the hell you want to be, ugly and all.
Introducing Ray Ward and Creative Practices
00:00:42
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the ugly podcast. I am here. I'm here with my good friend, Ray, who is a youth development professional who uses art and creativity as part of a trauma informed practice when serving young clients.
00:01:02
Speaker
working with kids has taught them infinite lessons on seeing beauty and imperfection and finding healing in the process rather than the results. And they are a part of the queer community and love exploring queerness through a creative lens. They live in Tacoma with their partner, two dogs and all the plants. So many plants. Thank you. Can you just please state your name once more and your pronouns, please? Yeah, my name is Ray Ward and my pronouns are they them.
00:01:32
Speaker
Excellent, thank you so much. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so excited to be here. Can you like?
00:01:41
Speaker
think of our baby college selves. We were roommates in college. Can you just think back to those sweet baby angels and imagine what they would say looking at us right now? You know it's funny because this past week I was actually on two different college campuses to do like a presentation and then one was just I was going to an event
00:02:04
Speaker
But being back on a college campus combined with like seeing you last weekend and seeing our other like college friends, I was like, Oh, the nostalgia, the wave, the wave. And not like, it's like one part fun nostalgia and then one part like, Oh my God, I thought
00:02:25
Speaker
I thought I had it all together. Like, man, maybe that's just with like turning 30 recently. But I've been looking back on my sweet, sweet little 18 year old self like, you idiot.
00:02:41
Speaker
With love, but like, you idiot. It's a nice you idiot. The loving knowing you dumb, dumb idiot. Yeah, yeah. Good times. Yes. Good times in stack eight.
00:02:59
Speaker
Oh my god. I did not remember it was called that. Yep. Oh man. Amazing.
Art as Therapy and Process over Product
00:03:12
Speaker
Well now you work with other young people who don't seem like idiots, which is great.
00:03:18
Speaker
I mean, they do still sometimes seem like idiots, but I try not to say that to their face. Sure. I can cut that too, if you don't want me to say that. No, it's fine. I'm very open about, you know, like the way I work with kids is that I will 100% never say to their face that they're dumb idiots, but do they make stupid choices? Absolutely. We all do. All young people do.
00:03:43
Speaker
Yeah. And even if it's not a stupid choice, sometimes I just find myself watching a kid doing something and being like, why are you the way you are?
00:03:52
Speaker
But I think it just gives me more compassion for who I was as a young person. So as much as I have those thoughts, it also keeps my ego in check of like, hey, Ray, you were that kid. Don't get it twisted. You were that kid. So how did you get started doing art with kids?
00:04:20
Speaker
Um, yeah, so I would say, so I, my, my degree officially, if we go all the way back to college, um, is in recreation. Um, and I think in my brain, I was always like, oh yeah, outdoor recreation, camping, fun stuff like that. That's how I thought I would be doing the work that I do. Um, but it turns out that the everyday kind of leisure and recreation looks a lot more just like daily creativity practice.
00:04:50
Speaker
Yeah. And also turns out I don't want to be all the time out in the woods hiking and, you know, living in a tent. I didn't think those words would ever leave your mouth. I know. I know. Again, thinking back to 18 year old college me, it's like, yo, you really liked being outside, but it turns out you're you're very much a homebody. Yeah, so it kind of transitioned into this
00:05:21
Speaker
you know, this area of work with youth where I think art and play were more of the avenues through which I was relating to young people and doing the work that I was doing. So it started, I mean, very much just with like camp and day camp and what do you do with a kid who has been dropped off at a day camp at 730 in the morning and
00:05:51
Speaker
you know, none of the rest of the kids are there yet. You give them some crayons and say run wild. Yeah. Yeah. Or you start working on a friendship bracelet and they're going, Oh my gosh, what is that? How do you do that? Can you teach me? Um, and yeah, so I think it was kind of those quiet times in between like big camp games and other things that were happening, um, that I started to,
00:06:17
Speaker
you know, do more of that. And now in my current position, where I work, it's primarily actually art based as a therapy tool. And so we use art and creativity practices as a way to like, practice mindfulness, as well as a yeah, as well as a way to like, process our emotions, which I think is not
00:06:48
Speaker
I don't know. If
Embracing Ugly Art and Playfulness
00:06:48
Speaker
you had asked me when I was growing up, like, are you artistic? I probably would have told you no. Right. I would have been like, no, I'm not an artistic person. Like, I can barely draw stick figures or like, you know. But the way of looking at creativity through a therapeutic lens and art through a therapeutic lens, it really does not focus on any kind of an end product. The focus is entirely on
00:07:18
Speaker
the process of what you're doing and how it is making you feel, which I think is why I connected so much to the work that you're doing with this whole ugly art idea is that, yeah, get away from the idea that there has to be a finished product of any kind and really just embrace that it's the process of creating that is bringing healing and bringing
00:07:46
Speaker
just space. It's giving yourself space to think and to process what you have gone through. Yeah. And to kind of like, be more fully yourself. Because like, I feel like when I'm doing ugly art, and I'm just like seeing what the first thing that comes into my head is I get to know myself a little better. And especially that just like really silly part of me that
00:08:10
Speaker
wants to draw beans for an hour. It gives that part of me space to just be there and exist. And I feel like those silly parts of ourselves that we don't really talk to very much as adults, they want to be seen and they want to have space.
00:08:32
Speaker
Absolutely. I started this current job that I'm in back in January. And so a lot of people over the last few months have asked me like, oh, are you still liking your job? And that's also in the midst of like seeing some of my other friends be in corporate America and are dying inside. And I can honestly say that I love my job because I get to let those pieces out on a regular frequent basis. And I think that corporate America is not built in such a way.
00:09:02
Speaker
that lets people let out their silliness. And we wonder why depression is so rampant and mental illness is so rampant.
00:09:12
Speaker
Um, I saw a meme actually on, I think it was this morning on Twitter, um, that was like, my boss is so rude. I got the zoomies at work and he wouldn't let me run around the office. And I love this idea. Cause like, if you have a dog, you know what zoomies are, right? It's when the dog, just like their brain just goes boop and they just start running. They just.
00:09:38
Speaker
they run in circles, they zoom around, whatever they're going to do. And I think that like so much of corporate America and also like school, school, the way that school is structured and all that kind of stuff, like doesn't allow for space that humans are still just like weird little animals. Like we need to run around and be weird and let the silliest parts of our brain have space. And so like you said, you know, if your brain for
00:10:06
Speaker
30 minutes needs to just draw beans or write a really weird story about the adventures that your toaster went on. Like we don't get anywhere else to do that in a normalized way. So I love that my job normalizes it. Like, yeah, I do it primarily while working with kiddos, but I get so much out of it. And I would say my team
00:10:34
Speaker
my team really does too. So the rest of the folks that also work with kids, I think we just have, I don't know, we have such a great way of talking about what we need in a given moment. And, and just like processing those emotions of like,
00:10:50
Speaker
You know, I'll be in my office for an hour or two and not really getting anything done. And I'll walk over to my boss and be like, Hey, I need to go take a walk. Um, or, Hey, do you want to come play a quick game of Mario Kart with me? Because we have like in the kid's room, we have some video games. Um, and it's not, it's not seen as procrastinating. It's not seen as.
00:11:15
Speaker
unproductivity to be doing those things. It's seen as like, no, just get your wiggles out. Yeah. Just look at you like, did you see that right is playing Mario Kart right now? Can you believe they're not working? I literally like I was waiting for water to boil for a cup of tea one afternoon.
00:11:36
Speaker
And I grabbed the Switch from its dock, which is one of the reasons I love the Switch. Not that this is an ad for Nintendo. But I grabbed it. If only. If only. I'd actually be making money.
00:11:53
Speaker
But I like put the water on to boil and then I went and grabbed the switch and I played like two or three, you know, races of Mario Kart. And, you know, my boss walked in and she was just like, what you doing? And I was like, I'm playing Mario Kart while I wait for my water to boil. She was like, awesome. Yeah. And she did what she needed to do and walked out and it was absolutely normal. And so I think that like,
00:12:19
Speaker
That's, I don't know, it's definitely shifted the way I look at like creativity and art and stuff as just a way for us to, you know, push out those boundaries of what I think society puts on us of like, here's what you're supposed to be. Here's the serious adult human that you are supposed to be. Turns out you don't have to, you don't have to be that. Not all the time anyway. Sure, there are probably some instances where you need to be that. And it's good to have the skills and tools to be able to do that.
00:12:49
Speaker
But finding avenues to let your own weirdness out is essential to happiness and mental health, I think. I agree. I don't remember what your original question was, but that's the tangent question I'll find.
00:13:06
Speaker
That's fine. You answered all my questions. We have this idea that everything we do has to be good or have value. This belief leads us to burn out. It can hold us back from creating altogether. But in my Ugly Art 101 course, I break down these restrictive beliefs and lead you through exercises that intentionally subvert perfectionism and bring playfulness back into your creative process.
00:13:30
Speaker
You can get the first day absolutely free by going to my website, scribeandsunshine.com and signing up on the homepage. Join me in my weird, ugly art revolution. Back to the show. Do you have any fun anecdotes, like specifically about your kids really letting go or just, I don't know, like anything that comes to mind of just like, yes, this is why we do this.
00:13:58
Speaker
Yeah,
Art in Education and Freedom of Expression
00:13:58
Speaker
actually. So this past week was a perfect example of that. We had some new students who came to our program. And I work primarily with teenagers. And for whatever reason, with the ebb and flow, I have had almost entirely like teenage boys recently, which I love. I love working with teenage boys. I think they're fascinating and hilarious.
00:14:25
Speaker
my coworkers are all just like, how do you do that? How do you hang out with them? And I was like, oh, no, it's great. Anyway, so we had, I think one of the kids had been there before and the other two were brand new. So three teenage boys and they're sitting down at the table with us and I'm asking them to make art.
00:14:46
Speaker
And all of them were kind of like, I'm not really artistic. They're treating it very much like an assignment at school. They were just like, what's the practice? What are the parameters? What are we supposed to write? Can I see yours again so I can do it right? And I was like, there's no doing it right.
00:15:06
Speaker
But before I'd even gotten to that, and I love that one of the kids started doing this, before I'd even gotten to that point, I gave them the tools that we were going to be using, which was literally just a piece of paper and then some admittedly very fun acrylic paint pens. They're my new favorite art tool lately. I just love acrylic paint pens. You shake and then you have to push the button.
00:15:35
Speaker
the little tip down. Yeah, the tip you have to push the tip down to make the the actual paint flow out. Well, these boys very quickly discovered that if you shake it hard enough, the paint comes out anyway. Yeah. And so we went from
00:15:52
Speaker
me starting to explain what the activity was supposed to look like to all three of them violently shaking my brand new acrylic paint pens onto mostly the paper but also the table and creating their own beautiful splatter art.
00:16:14
Speaker
Honestly, they were so proud of it. I've been doing youth work and stuff for long enough that I know when to pivot and just give up on original plans. I took it and ran and adapted the activity to what they were already doing because they were having so much fun doing it.
00:16:38
Speaker
But if that's not a perfect example of getting your wiggles out quite literally, they're just shaking. It was so funny. As I was showing them, I was like, keep the cap on and shake it so that you can get the ink ready to come out. And they were like, OK. And one of the kids was just like, what if I take the cap off? And the next five minutes were a complete blur. And I still have not cleaned all of the paint off of that table. And to be honest, I probably never will. That table is a piece of art now. It adds character.
00:17:07
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, that's definitely one of my favorite anecdotes. And I just love that it happened to be very, very recent. Yes, I love that. Do the kids tend to run into any of the same mental roadblocks? I know we were just talking about how they're like, wait, what's the assignment? Like, what do you see the most?
00:17:30
Speaker
It's really interesting. I would say what is the assignment is definitely a huge vibe, especially with the teenagers that I work with. They have been in the school system long enough that I think they're like, OK, if I complete this assignment quick enough, I can go back to doing whatever it is I want to do. And so for a lot of them, when they first come in, that's how they're viewing it.
00:17:53
Speaker
get the thing done as fast as possible to the teacher's liking, and then I can be done with it. That's how I feel. Give me an A, now I'll leave. Exactly. There's definitely some activities that they come into it with that mindset, especially if it's their first or second time coming to our group.
00:18:19
Speaker
I hope by the third or fourth time that they're coming, they kind of understand that there is no grading system. There is no rubric. I don't care if you do the artwork that I have suggested. Just don't be a jerk while you're in this room. That's really my only requirement. So I would say it's definitely that piece of it coming in is just kind of this idea of like, it's not that the students lack creativity. I think it's just that they
00:18:52
Speaker
they assume that's not what I'm looking for. They assume that I'm looking for a complete assignment because that's what they experience in school. They assume that I have a very specific thing in my head of what the final product should look like. And so most often I think with my age group, when I say, actually, no, the parameters are much more open than that, I get a lot of like, what do I do now?
00:19:22
Speaker
Yeah, there's like a moment where your brain has to catch up because you're just like, wait, yeah, empty space where I thought I had to do something you wanted, but now you're giving me freedom and I don't know what to do with this freedom now.
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah. So to go back to our dog with the zooming example. So, you know, you have a dog who maybe is, when they're on leash, they're constantly pulling and like wiggling and has all this energy. And I remember the first time that we took our dog, Rody, to the dog park, we let him off leash and he just looked at us like, what am I supposed to do now? And of course he figured it out eventually. And he was like, I can run anywhere I want to and I'm safe and I'm happy here and it's okay.
00:20:04
Speaker
But I think when you first encounter that freedom of creativity, it can be really daunting of like, well, what if I don't do it right? What if I don't? What? And so I think there's definitely that just like deer in the headlights look of what do you mean I don't have to do this? And so I
00:20:29
Speaker
and figuring out still what that looks like to kind of introduce them to that space without it being that, you know, oh my God, I don't know what to do with this. Yeah, but yeah, I think it's it's very much just this like overwhelming feeling of not feeling safe in their own creativity because it's not encouraged anywhere else. Yeah. Or at least it's not encouraged in the same ways. And
00:20:58
Speaker
So that's definitely one of the things that I encounter. I think the other big mental roadblock that comes up, which you talk a lot about here, is perfectionism.
00:21:14
Speaker
And this, I mean, wildly depends on the kid. Obviously you're going to have some kids who like show you a picture and they're just like, look, this is better than the Mona Lisa. I'm the most amazing artist in the world. And you're like, that's a bunch of dots on a page. Sure, kid. You sure did it. Yeah. And, you know, in my mind, of course, I'm like, absolutely, you are the best artist in the world. Good job. But there's this kind of like weird sweet spot around, I would say fourth and fifth grade, especially.
00:21:44
Speaker
Um, which when you think about yourself developmentally, uh, you know, the, the early years, your creativity is much more just flowing and, um, free. And I think when you get into that fifth and sixth grade, you have much more of a sense of who am I to other people, not just who am I to myself? Um, but who am I to other people that, that sense of, of ego outside of yourself? Yeah. Well, in learning that like people can laugh at you or. Yes.
00:22:14
Speaker
Yeah, like that's a big one. Like, oh, no, if I don't do the right thing, people can laugh at me. They can get mad at me. Absolutely. Yeah, they can look at me different for the clothes that I wear. They can look at me funny how I do my hair. All of that starts to happen around that third fourth grade level. And so by by fourth and fifth grade, there's pretty solidly a strong contingent of kids who have this idea of perfectionism. And it's so
00:22:42
Speaker
It's like it has a chokehold. It's wild. We have, you know, some kids are much more open to kind of the idea of like, hey, you made a mistake, but here's how we can be creative to fix that mistake. Or they're even open to the idea of like, did you know in art there are no mistakes? That's my favorite line to use on kids. And sometimes they go,
00:23:07
Speaker
what really in art there's no such thing as a mistake and they're like oh my god you are blowing my mind right now and then you have a really fun like you see them that next week and they're just like you know scribbling all over and having a great time and much more free with their creativity um but there are definitely students who you can tell them
00:23:30
Speaker
you know in art there's no such thing as a mistake and they adamantly will tell you yes there is. There absolutely is and it's this that I just did right now. And you know and so I mean I have a kid I had a kid recently who like I just knew if I was going to give them coloring pages I would have to print off probably about 10 coloring pages because
00:23:56
Speaker
they would make one, two, three marks on the page and immediately decide that it was ruined. And, you know, part of that has to do with neurodivergence. Part of that has to do with perfectionism culture that we've been taught. Like there's a lot of different core things of what that could be. But I especially see this struggle of like, when we ask them like, well, what, what's upsetting you so much about, you know,
00:24:23
Speaker
this. Why can't you continue with this coloring page?" And they're like, I messed up. Show me where you messed up. And it'll be the tiniest, tiniest little mark that's outside of the lines on a coloring page. And we'll be like, well, what do you think we can do to fix this? And they're like, oh, it's ruined. There's nothing we can do to fix it. I'm a failure. The best thing now is to just start over again.
00:24:45
Speaker
And I'm like, kiddo, you're like eight years old. I just want to give him a hug. I know. I'm like, you're not a failure. This is a coloring page of a husky. You're going to be fine. I have 10 more over here that are blank. We can try again.
00:25:06
Speaker
And so like encouraging this idea of like, yes, try again, but also how do you move forward with a mistake, right? How do you actually move forward through that process of like, I had one thing in my head and the thing on the page looks different.
00:25:23
Speaker
Yeah, and I relate to that a lot. I think I get in my head, you know, I embrace forms of abstract creativity a lot more. I love a good collage. I love scribble artwork. I love splatter paint because there is no right way. I think when I'm trying to draw something that
00:25:43
Speaker
you should know what it looks like by the end of my drawing. Like, hey, this is a picture of a potted plant, right? And then someone looks at it and they're like, is that a jack in the box? And I'm like, no. No, it wasn't. Thanks, though. Right? Like, yeah, that can feel discouraging regardless of your age. And so when the thing in your head isn't what ends up on the page, that can be really frustrating. And so
00:26:13
Speaker
I think it's partly unlearning that perfectionism, but also partly redefining what it means to have that vision come to fruition.
Modeling Imperfection and Personal Growth
00:26:26
Speaker
So yeah, there's definitely a lot of different roadblocks. It heavily depends on the kid and heavily depends on their own individual likes, dislikes, fears, the ways they've been encouraged or discouraged in the past by other
00:26:42
Speaker
Um, you know, adults or peers when it comes to any kind of artwork. Um, so yeah, it's, it's really interesting. Um, being the person who then helps students move through that, uh, because there's no, oh, sorry, go ahead. Oh no, I was just gonna say there's no like one size fits all. Yeah.
00:27:06
Speaker
Is there anything that you found like because like you mentioned just telling somebody there are no rules like that doesn't always come across like so how do you really like encourage them like yeah really I mean it it's like this is what I've had to do like on my ugly art nights I've had some people just like the first time they come they will make like just like flowers the whole time
00:27:36
Speaker
And that's awesome. I love it. I love flowers. But then they see how terrible I make my stuff, which just looks like a five-year-old. And they're like, oh, it can be that bad? Yeah. And still welcome here. Wow.
00:27:52
Speaker
Um, which obviously if you want to come make flowers in my ugly art event, please, please do like do it. And so like, at least for me, I found that like showing my own terrible stuff and being like, look, I actually mean this bad. Um, so I don't know if you have any other other ways that you handle that.
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's a huge one. I feel like there's my kind of go-to ways, like probably a handful of different ways that I can go about introducing the idea of like perfectionism is a lie. Yeah. And it depends, you know, on age range and a whole bunch of different things. You know, one student
00:28:35
Speaker
Miraculously when I said, hey, did you know that like there's no such thing as mistakes in art? That made sense to her. It clicked. It worked. The next week she came back and she was a like artistic madman and she would like
00:28:50
Speaker
mess something up entirely and she'd be like, that's okay, I'll fix it by doing this. And like, I love it completely shifted how she was looking at her creative practice, which I just, it was incredible to watch. And but as I said, that is not a one size fits all. I think some of the other things that I try is what you just said showing creating alongside
00:29:16
Speaker
people and showing them that modeling, really modeling what that can look like to make something ugly and be proud of it. Or just be, not even proud, but be like, yep, I made this. It's silly. It's pointless. I love it.
00:29:32
Speaker
Yeah, you know, and so modeling that that piece of it. And you know, I have to sometimes consciously make myself do that, because there are definitely times where I'm like, Oh, this is the assignment, I have to make the best one possible. And I revert right back into that mindset. So modeling it is a great thing for for kiddos, if any of y'all out there working with kids. I think the other
00:30:00
Speaker
thing too is giving them specifically prompts that are meant to be messy. And I mentioned some of these before, you know, like collages, splatter art. What are some of the other ones that I do? Crayon melting art.
00:30:22
Speaker
Oh gosh, I have more examples. I'll think of them along the way. But again, these artistic practices that aren't meant to come out perfectly. They are meant to kind of be art that happens as it happens. I recently discovered, and I absolutely love because we have them at work. I think it's called jelly prints. And so it's this weird little, it's like a printmaking tool.
00:30:48
Speaker
that you use with acrylic paints and other different things. But there's no way of predicting what your print is going to look like. And so it's a really fun thing of just like, I don't know, just try some stuff. And so I was doing that with the young people and they were just like, well, how do I make it look
00:31:10
Speaker
like this. And I was like, I truly don't know. I was like, we're gonna have to just try some things until we get something that looks kind of cool. And that practice is really helpful of like, okay, the first few things are going to be a dud maybe, or they're not gonna look the way that you had imagined. But you can continue to tweak how you're doing it until you get that result. Or sometimes you'll do something that you're like, Oh, we'll see this probably won't turn out good. And then it turns out amazing. And you're like, Oh,
00:31:39
Speaker
Wow, okay, how can I recreate that now? And so I think just purposefully giving yourself artistic practices that are not meant to be pretty. They're not meant to have any kind of an end result that's gonna get hung up in a gallery. I also love that at my work in particular, everyone's work gets put up.
00:32:05
Speaker
you know, obviously, if they don't want to, we're not going to put up against their will. Right. A little weird. But like, you know, if it's a joint thing where, you know, we're all putting up onto a section of the wall, everybody's goes up there, even if you're not finished. And it adds to the whole, right? It adds to the bigger picture. And so we had a
00:32:33
Speaker
We have an art show actually that's going on for the duration of this month, um, for October. And I really love it in all of September, we were preparing our art pieces and, you know, you had some of the kids who were like, this is going to be in an art show in an art gallery. And I'm like, it's really not an art gallery. It's just like, you know, the big conference room downstairs, but sure, whatever. Um, and you know, I think different kids can take that in
00:33:03
Speaker
in their own ways, but for the most part, um, just this, I dunno, the creating, I think there was a higher level of students being like, Oh, I have to create something that I want to show to other people. Um, and that definitely created a whole pressure that I was like, ah, I don't usually have this pressure in my, in my space. Um, and so it was again, modeling.
00:33:31
Speaker
I would create something ridiculous and be like, well, this is going in the art show. And they'd be like, really? You're submitting that? And I was like, that's what I made. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think, yeah, there's there's ways to go about it, but it's definitely not a one size fits all. Just depends on depends on the kid. Yeah.
00:33:58
Speaker
Hey all, it's Lauren to interrupt this episode briefly to talk about my dear friend perfectionism. I was held back by my perfectionism for years. I didn't do so many things that I desired to do because I didn't think I'd be any good at them and therefore I shouldn't do them.
00:34:14
Speaker
And this is something we all do. And I've created a workshop that's an accumulation of all the work and tools that I put into healing from perfectionism and getting back in touch with my creativity. If you struggled with this like I did, and still do from time to time, you can check out my Creating Through Perfectionism workshop at kofi.com slash scribe sunshine slash shop. And use the discount code UGLY, that's U-G-L-Y, to get 20% off of the workshop and workbook.
00:34:42
Speaker
Perfectionism doesn't go away, but we can train ourselves to work with it and to tear down or maybe walk around the seemingly immovable wall that keeps us from taking risks and moving forward. Back to the show. Do you have what kind of growth have you seen from kids as they're encouraged to continually express creativity? And actually kind of before you answer that, how long do people like do kids keep coming back to you? Like, do you see kids long term or is it
00:35:12
Speaker
kind of an every once in a while thing? Yeah, it's a little bit of everything. I think there's some instances where we've seen a kid maybe once or twice, and then we never see them again, and that's fine. And then we also have students who are coming into our space on a weekly basis and have been for years. And so I'm newer, but there are, especially as we started to bring back in-person programming,
00:35:38
Speaker
this past year after COVID. I'll bleep that. But as we as we brought back in person programming, there were definitely some students that like my co workers who have been there for a few years were just like, Oh my gosh, you've grown so much. It's so amazing. What grade are you in now? Like, so yeah, there are students that we see for years at a time. But there's also students that we see maybe once or twice and that's it.
00:36:06
Speaker
Um, which makes it really hard to predict like what kind of an impact am I going to have or what kind of a, you know, not even I, what kind of an impact are you going to get out of this time together? Um, but I would say there's definitely growth that I see. Um, and it's so multifaceted, right? It's not just growth in their creative practice, but
00:36:32
Speaker
I mean, part of the reason I love working with kids is that oftentimes if they grow in one area, they're going to grow in a lot of different areas because they're still forming their sense of self and their sense of the world around them. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, turns out that never ends. But yeah, I, we had one student earlier on this year who, like,
00:37:00
Speaker
from the first time that he came, he was extremely closed off. Um, didn't really want to have anything to do with anyone. He would do the activities that we were doing, but was like kind of, you know, doing the bare minimum. Um, and I didn't get to see cause I didn't work with, um, that group as frequently, but, um, I didn't get to see exactly what it was that kind of unlocked it for him.
00:37:25
Speaker
But at some point in the process, I think he finally realized that it was a safe enough place to exist and be, and to be creative. And so it really is that like, you know, as many problems as there are with it, but the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? It took him feeling literally safe in the space, both physically and emotionally safe.
00:37:53
Speaker
to be able to open up. And by the time he left, it was like I knew a whole different kid. He was open, he would talk about his feelings. He was, you know, one of the first to, you know, suggest what game we should play for the day. It was just, yeah, it was a whole different student that it felt like we were working with.
00:38:17
Speaker
And so the growth isn't just in the creative practice, but it can be. I mean, like I was talking about the other kid who, you know, I told her, hey, there's no mistakes in art. And she was just like, I'm going to create everything now. And she has been unstoppable. She's she's one of the ones that we see pretty much on a weekly basis. And it's always, I think,
00:38:39
Speaker
I went from seeing her get really frustrated at an activity, like she would get frustrated about an art activity that we were doing.
00:38:48
Speaker
Um, or like really stressed that the time was coming to a close, like, okay, we have 10 minutes left to finish up your activity. And you would see her just get like anxiety through the roof. Uh, and she went from having kind of those breakdowns of like, I'm not done yet. It's not perfect yet. I need more time. Like, give me more time to finish this, which like, I get it. Sometimes when you're in the creative flow, you just want to stay there. Um, but for her, I think it was more of just a like, I want
00:39:17
Speaker
like, I need time to be able to make this perfect. And so when we told her, like, there's no such thing as perfect, it opened up this idea of like, I can take it home and keep working on it. Or I can go work on it during free time. Or actually, it's not done yet, but it's still pretty just the way it is. Yeah, you can leave it unfinished. And that's still a safe place to leave it. Yeah, or even you can come back and work on it next week. It'll still be here.
00:39:47
Speaker
Um, and I think that like she's so much more at ease in the space now. Um, and that has been incredible to see. And again, it's not just like the creative practice, but it's also just like, how do we move through anxiety? How do we move through those different feelings that feel too big and too much in the moment? Um, and so it really is just that like this creative practice has given her more space.
00:40:15
Speaker
to move through things. That's so cool. It's so sweet. They're good kids. I love it. What have you learned through this process about creativity, about how to live your life?
00:40:31
Speaker
What have these kids taught you? Oh my God, everything. How long have you been working there now? I've been working there since January at this job in particular. But, you know, I've been working with kids pretty much since before I was even in college, I've been doing some kind of youth development work.
00:40:52
Speaker
Shout out to church camp. And I would say, you know, all along the way, I have allowed myself to be open to the idea of letting myself learn from the students. Just as much as I hope that they're getting something out of my knowledge, I get so much out of my time with them. And I think one of the biggest things is like how to have compassion for yourself, because that's
00:41:22
Speaker
You know, I think when you're, when you're little and when so many things are out of your control at that age, like you feel your feelings much bigger, they're much more overwhelming. You know, a lot of the students that I work with are also going through other various traumas. And
00:41:48
Speaker
sitting with them in that, whether it's like, I can't, I'm paralyzed in this moment because I made a mistake and went outside the lines on my coloring sheet, right? To sit through a student with that actually teaches you a lot about your own ability to sit through failure and or perceived failure, and your own ability to move through disappointment. Because you're seeing it in such a
00:42:19
Speaker
like concentrated in moment with a person and you're trying to help them move through it. And it doesn't work to just say like, hey, get over it kid. And yet so often that's what we're taught to say to ourselves, right? If I'm having a bad day, it's like, oh, just get over it, snap out of it or figure it out. You're a big kid, do it.
00:42:47
Speaker
And so it's taught me a lot of self-compassion to just take that step back and be like, no, actually, sometimes things just aren't right and they don't feel right and they make us feel unsafe or anxious and we may not know why. And you just have to take a step back and be like, it's okay, you're safe in this moment.
00:43:14
Speaker
How do we move forward and move through that? I think, I mean, I've also just grown in my creative practice in terms of, you know, in order to model what imperfection looks like, that means I have to be imperfect. And honestly, that's been amazing. Like, I get to create really silly looking things. But I also in the process of created a lot of really cool things. I think
00:43:44
Speaker
If you, you know, I say, if you'd asked me as a kid, if I was artistic, truly, if you asked me like a year ago, if I was artistic, I would be like, eh, not really. When in reality, so much of my life is actually spent creating. It's just not necessarily like portraiture artwork. Like why, I don't know why that's like the gold standard of what we consider artistic is like, can you draw a face? No, I can't draw a face.
00:44:13
Speaker
Are you kidding? Like, no. But am I artistic in so many other ways? Yeah. Like, I mean, during during the early days of the pandemic, I took up Linow cut, linoleum cut printing. And in my head, I was still like, I'm not artistic. Literally, I'm making art.
00:44:36
Speaker
I was doing paint by number just cause it was something to do with my hands on the long winter days that we have in the Pacific Northwest. Um, and I was telling myself like, well, it's paint by number. I didn't, I didn't make the painting like the, so it doesn't really count. Yes, it does. I know we have such a limited view of creativity and what it means to be creative and put our creative energy towards something. It's so limited.
00:45:04
Speaker
Well, I remember in the early days of this thing that you have created that is ugly art, doing that first challenge that you put together and just kind of opening up myself to the idea that it wasn't actually just visual art, but sitting down for an afternoon and just fiddling around on my guitar. It's
Creative Freedom and Personal Expression
00:45:30
Speaker
art!
00:45:31
Speaker
That day when we went to get brunch, and you told me that you had this realization that like, I'm gonna tear up just thinking about it. But like, you told me that me telling you to go make ugly shit, like made you realize like, oh, I can make ugly anything. I can make ugly music. I was just like, yes, you get it. It's the light bulb moment.
00:45:59
Speaker
Not everything you do has to have a purpose. It doesn't have to be good. It's just... And it doesn't have to be pen to paper either. Yes, it can be. I think that was really like such a huge realization and I mean not to like make you tear up even more but I think I had been in such a rut during that time because that was what back in like March?
00:46:23
Speaker
I don't know how long things are. What is time? Yeah. I know it was sometime in 2021. I don't really remember. Yeah. Yeah. Sometime last year, we'll put it like that. Yeah. I had been in such a rut and I realized that I hadn't really actually picked up my guitar in like months. I went from going to open mic nights and performing at open mic nights on a weekly basis before the pandemic.
00:46:51
Speaker
to because of the pandemic, unfortunately, not being able to do that and having not picked up my guitar for probably nine months to a year. This thing that I loved to do. And just because I wasn't doing it in front of other people. And so having that conversation with you and getting to do some of the ugly art stuff that you introduced to me was this idea of like, oh, I'm not doing it for other people.
00:47:16
Speaker
I'm doing this because I love it and because I need it. And so I spent this beautiful, it was like a gorgeous day. And I like opened up my front door and sat on my porch and played my guitar much to the sugar and I'm sure of my neighbors. And I just like, you know, for probably 45 minutes just played nothing and everything. There was no specific song I was playing. I wasn't trying to like, you know, do a cover or
00:47:46
Speaker
write anything. It was just sitting down and playing an instrument that I love. And I was like, oh my god, I have not done this in a long time. Why have I been keeping this from myself?
00:47:59
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that goes full circle back to this idea of like, we got to get our wiggles out. We're just weird little human worms and we got to get our wiggles out. And that looks different for every single person. For some people that means painting. For some people that means picking up a guitar. For other people, maybe that means making a choice to
00:48:29
Speaker
brew up a cup of tea and go sit outside with intention for 10 minutes and watch the world around them. Art doesn't have to be art in the sense that we think it is. This is what we were talking about over text the other day that I loved, which was this idea of performance art. If you get into performance art, then it opens up a whole other category of what art can look like.
00:48:56
Speaker
Yeah, and so like Emerson talks about this as like improvisation for your life. Yes. Yeah, literally just like, instead of going through what your brain, like what what motions you think you're supposed to? What if you actually listened to your own needs, and your own wants and desires, and did what that looked like?
00:49:23
Speaker
And, you know, for me, sometimes that means sitting down and playing a video game. It's still, it's me improvving. It's me saying this in this moment is what I choose and want to do. And other times it's, nope, I want to pick up my guitar and I want to have a little fun with that. And then other times it's, I just want to go sit outside with my dogs and watch
00:49:50
Speaker
you know, the squirrels fight in my neighbor's tree. And like, I think it opens up this idea of like, just getting to be creative with our own lives that is so much more freeing than thinking, all right, I wake up, I eat breakfast, I go to work, I come home, I make dinner, I go to bed. Like, if we can think more about our daily choices as improv, and as performance art,
00:50:18
Speaker
it, for one, it becomes more fun. Yeah. But but for another thing, I think it allows you to connect with a piece of yourself that deeply desires to be seen and heard and listened to, and often gets pushed to the wayside. Yeah, you get to actually decide in that moment, what do you really want to do? How do you really want to express yourself right now? Yeah.
00:50:49
Speaker
Ah, so good. So good. I could keep talking to you about this forever, but. Well, and we haven't even, I mean, we had a whole other subsection about creativity and gender, which is a whole different conversation that we can have. I know. But we'll save that for another day. Yeah, I'll have to have you back on here. You, me and Emerson would be great. Oh my God. Yes. Oh, I can't wait.
00:51:17
Speaker
That'll be so good. OK, so what is something ugly you made this week or recently? Oh, man, I knew you were going to ask this question and I totally had something ready. And now I can go first if you need to think. Yeah, you go first. I know I had something. So I had something that I made this week, but what you were saying about like performance art
00:51:46
Speaker
made me think of this thing that I did a while ago. And it was like, I bought my first pair, not pair, but my first set of D&D dice. Oh, yeah. And I was so excited. But I didn't have like a session coming up or anything. I just wanted to play with them. I love where this is going.
00:52:09
Speaker
I sat at my table and I just started saying a story out loud of like, okay, I have this character and I don't even remember the name of the character. I love this. But it was probably Jerry because I always write, whenever I make ugly stories, it's always about a person named Jerry. Good for Jerry.
00:52:29
Speaker
Jerry wake up and then I just would roll a d20 to decide what Jerry did and how Jerry reacted to like everything Jerry makes coffee rolls a nat one spills the coffee all over themselves Yes, yeah, you've got the spirit of it. I don't remember anything that I said but oh I think one was like
00:52:54
Speaker
Jerry got pulled over on the way to work cause she was speeding. Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah, I can't, I can't remember what else, but roll charisma to talk yourself out of getting a speeding ticket. Yeah. Uh, but it was, it was delightful. A little D and D session just by myself. I absolutely love that. Love that.
00:53:20
Speaker
Um, okay. This was a while ago, but I still am just really proud of it. Not proud. I don't know. I just, it just was fun. Um, I, I follow this artist, um, call, uh, God, I'm going to look up her name right now. Cause I will. Fabiana, uh, Fabiana Rodriguez is her name.
00:53:45
Speaker
Um, and she does a lot of art that is, um, I guess collage based, but it's more, I dunno, it's like she cuts out different shapes and then uses those shapes on a canvas to create her art. Um, so using like paper as her, uh, paintbrush kind of a thing. Um, and I, uh,
00:54:13
Speaker
Yeah, I did that recently as an activity with the kiddos of just like, hey, here's this artist. Here's your style of art. Let's use it to inspire ourselves. Make whatever you want. And I ended up making kind of this weird face with a border. It was very Picasso-style type face. But I really just kind of cut out very random shapes of like, OK, I need a nose. Let's cut out something that kind of looks like a nose.
00:54:41
Speaker
and put them all into place and it was just like, oh, actually this turned out kind of cool. Nice. I love it when that happens when you're just like throwing stuff down and then you're like, wait, I really like this. Yeah. It's the best feeling. She has another practice that I want to try and I just haven't had time to yet. So maybe that'll be my like goal for this coming week. But in the same vein, she'll cut out a bunch of shapes, whether that's, you know, shapes of leaves or flowers or, um,
00:55:10
Speaker
hearts or abstract, like it doesn't matter. She'll just cut out a bunch of different shapes and a bunch of different colors. And she will put down a blank piece of paper. And she will basically just take those shapes and like throw them in the air. And then see where they land on that piece of paper. And she glues them down exactly where they lay. And then cuts off the excess around the page. And what you're left with is your artwork.
00:55:39
Speaker
I like that. Which goes back to another practice of like there's no way to mess up because it's literally just you're letting fate and gravity decide what your artwork is going to look like. So I gravitate a lot towards those I think when I'm trying to just like get myself started on creativity and creative pieces.
00:56:03
Speaker
But yeah, Fabiana Rodriguez, her artwork is amazing and has been really inspiring me lately. Awesome. I will have that linked in the show notes, so I will definitely start following her. I feel so fancy. You just said you would have something I said linked in the show notes. Linked in the show notes?
00:56:24
Speaker
Thank you so much for being here, Ray. I adore you and you're doing such great work with those kiddos. And I will talk to you soon. Thank you everybody for listening. Keep it ugly.
00:56:40
Speaker
The Ugly podcast is created by me, Lauren Alexander of Scribe and Sunshine. It is produced and sort of edited, also by me, and written and directed by absolutely nobody. If you like the podcast, be sure to write and leave a review on your preferred platform and share with the creative people in your life. If you're interested in learning more about what I do, head to scribeandsunshine.com to learn more about my Ugly Art 101 course, my perfectionism workshop, my editing services, and the Writer's Helm, which is an online community for writers, co-captain by myself and Gabby Goodlow. As always, keep it ugly.