Creative Practice:

Summer Solstice Session

SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 2023

A special Summer Solstice session to clarify intentions midway through the year.

Creative Practice: Birthing Big Art Dreams and Pivoting Towards Sustained Motion with Deep Love and Wonder.

Join me for a special summer session. It’s a wonderful time to reflect on the first half of the year and set intentions for the second half. It’s my only online workshop this summer, scheduled with the new moon and start of the next season.

Creative Practice

Live Online on Saturday, June 17 from 1-4pm EST.

There’s an opportunity to center creativity into your everyday life and turn your biggest art dreams into reality. It doesn’t happen overnight, it isn’t solely based on mystical blessings from the awe-inspiring muses, but instead you can steadily gain access to the creative life you most want to live by making it a reality, one habit at a time. Creative practice is the ongoing work of making art—it’s the daily rituals, ordinary systems, and organized tasks. At all stages of a creative life, you need to make time to tune-in, dream bigger, and set new ideas into action. In this class, you’ll focus on what you most want to make in your life right now, how you want to share it with the world, and who will support you in this journey. You’ll demystify the creative process while holding space for the magical muses because it turns out, it’s both mysticism and time management to birth a creative life.

This afternoon workshop will lead participants through writing, brainstorming, and focused organizing exercises to support student’s individual creative practices. Participants will spend time soul-searching, goal-setting, and identifying when, how, and with who their art dreams will come true right now this summer. Students will leave with a guide for their creative practice and tools for reaching their biggest creative goal. Mostly, you’ll commit to your creative practice as a container to make your most important work now. Based on ten years of focusing on the slow fashion project, Make Thrift Mend, and twenty-five years of working in the arts, I will share my personal approach to creativity, work flow, and living a creative life while raising two young children, running a small business, authoring three books, repairing an ancient farmhouse, and being a passionate, inspired, albeit easily-distracted human.

(Class is live with a follow-up recording and PDF handout. You can join us on Saturday, June 17 or watch and read at your own pace.)

This Class Is for You If:

• You consider yourself a creative person but want to better support your focused creative time.

• You have a project or art dream in mind but can’t see all the details yet. Or you want to focus more on your creativity but need some structure and tools to make it happen.

• You want to take a creative risk but you need some support. (Not because you aren't doing enough but because you are not a robot, you are a human. This class is for humans only!)

• You’d like to sell your work, exhibit your work, publish your work, sew a garment, knit a sweater, contact a curator, launch a class, setup a studio, organize your studio, mend your clothes, or start a dye garden but you’d like more support. Even if you haven't told anyone you want this, you know you want this and you're willing to create a container for yourself to work towards it.

This Class Is Not for You If:

• You think you need another degree to be taken seriously as an artist, writer, designer, or creative person.

• You aren't willing to carve out 15-30 minutes a day, most days, to work towards your biggest, brightest creative dreams.

• You want me to tell you exactly how you should be a successful creative person (I already think you’re a successful creative person and I might not even know you! Plus, this isn’t a class about precision or replication, it’s about brainstorming, map-making, and putting your biggest creative dream into action right now.)

Note: This class is not a how-to craft class but a class about supporting your creative practice. It's about you! If you have questions about your project / ideas fitting into this class structure, please contact me through the "contact" page on my website. All creative projects welcome--I provide the structure, you provide the art dream. Lastly, I will not be offering my personal or professional contacts to make your dreams come true but I will help you map your way to making your own connections. Yes you can! I did. You can too.

WHAT STUDENTS SAY…

  • "This class was exactly what I needed to gently focus my creative energy on what -- surprisingly, delightfully, magically -- excited me most, and create a firm stepping off place and direction. A path forward, and a precise yet easeful commitment to its process, progress and unfolding. Katrina is able to hold space for the spark of inspiration and intention, and provide guidance for actualizing, bringing a tender creative dream into being."

    —K.D.

  • "The class was outstanding and I feel that I'm making progress. Hooray!"

    —Linda S.

  • "Katrina’s Creative Practice class came along at exactly the right time to propel my project forward. I loved the thoughtful moments throughout our time together as well as the really helpful framework Katrina provided. There are several important steps I have taken since class to fire up my creativity and get working."

    —Tracy I.

  • "The Creative Practice class was so great and I just want to say I found it extremely helpful and really inspiring. Thank you again for a most wonderful experience! I now have found some clarity around working with my ideas and ways of finding some space (time and physical) to do this."

    —Libby Q.

More Details…

Materials to Bring to Class

  • An idea of a creative project you'd like to turn into reality in 2023. Or a willingness to unearth your project in class.

  • A notebook and pencil or writing tool.

  • The calendar system that you already use regularly (your cell phone, laptop, planner, paper calendar, etc.).

  • One tangible item that inspires and you're willing to share--could be a painting, a poem, or a favorite flower.

  • A willingness to share your creative dreams with a small, supportive, private work group.

Class Format

  • This class will take place live on Zoom on Saturday, June 17 from 1-4pm EST with a break. It will be recorded for all students and the recording will be made available within 7 days of the live workshop. Students will focus, journal and make plans to support their work.

  • Class will be broken into three sessions: A brainstorming and soul-searching session to gain clarity on the one creative dream that feels most urgent right now; A work session to create a document that will guide your creative practice; A work session to identify when, how, and with who this work will move forward this year.

  • Recordings will only be intended for students personal use—no public recordings will ever be shared and we will respect each other’s most intimate art dreams.

  • After class, you will receive a downloadable PDF to use as a guide and continue your work after our workshop session.

  • There are no refunds for this class.

NOTE: I am not a therapist, counselor, or trained mental health provider. I am an artist and author excited to share my personal creative process to help others move towards their art dreams. I cannot provide mental health advice nor be held responsible for how this class might, unintentionally, affect mental health if any content is revealing or triggering. I will do my best to create a safe, fun, supportive class offering; lead the prompts with tenderness and thoughtfulness; and allow for flexibility in how/ if you share personal insights. You can leave your camera on or off. You can participate in comments or not. It's up to you. All content will be kept private for class participants only but will be recorded for students to review after class. Thank you!

Teacher Bio

Katrina Rodabaugh is an artist, writer, and teacher working across disciplines to explore environmental and social issues through craft techniques. Mostly, she rethinks the relationship between fiber art, sustainability, and fashion. She’s the author of three books including Make Thrift Mend (2021), Mending Matters (2018), and The Paper Playhouse (2015). Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Selvedge Magazine, Sunset magazine, Taproot magazine, Tauko magazine, and more.

Katrina earned a BA in Environmental Studies and an MFA in Creative Writing/ Poetry though her fiber arts training started as a child at the side of her mother’s sewing machine. She teaches online and in-person, writes for digital and print publications, and designs goods for her online shop. She lives with her husband, two sons, flock of chickens, hive of honeybees, and many dye plants in a very old farmhouse in the Hudson Valley of NY. She works to inspire and support folks to lead creative, sustainably-minded, decidedly hopeful lives. www.katrinarodabaugh.com