Your Biggest Creative Supporter
I was sitting in a café yesterday with a good friend and we were having an amazing conversation (Most amazing conversations take place in a café, don’t you think?) and my heart was so full of gratitude: for her existence, for our paths crossing, for our developing friendship, and for her support of my creative life. So, I told her.
I think sometimes it’s easy for us to identify and thank others for the ways they enrich our lives as creatives. I know I appreciate even small acts of support: a neighbor coming to a book signing, a fellow poet meeting me to workshop, a friend letting me share photos of a recent painting.
But do we give ourselves the same consideration? How often do we acknowledge the ways we work hard to build relationship with our creative practice? Do we give ourselves credit for the time and energy we give to our creative pursuits? Do we acknowledge the ways we care for this important part of our lives?
We should. We are swimming against a cultural tide for our passions; capitalism doesn’t contain a built-in system of support for us dreamers and world-builders, for us artists and word-weavers.
It’s an important part of supporting your creative practice to acknowledge how hard you have been working. How have you been vulnerable in your art? Celebrate, at the very least, the courage you have to put in all of the emotional work—regardless of the amount of production you engage in.
Have you been playing? Experimenting? Trying new tools? New approaches to practicing your creativity? Breaking out of ruts in thought and practice needs to be acknowledged and celebrated! It takes focus, effort, and time.
It takes awareness and acknowledgement from ourselves to fill our own creative wells to continue in our brave pursuits. It is my hope in the next few days you will take some time to think about the ways you have been showing up for yourself and your creative practice. Continue to strengthen your relationship with yourself and your creative practice by acknowledging your efforts, the same as you would for anyone else who was showing up for you.
You could write a list of your accomplishments; take yourself out for a nice drink or some ice cream; go for a scenic walk—whatever would feel like a treat and appreciation of all your hard work and efforts. Showing up for yourself and your creativity is an amazing gift you are giving yourself!
All good things, Loralee
---THE SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION PART---
· If you are local, I’ll be at the Gloucester Book Fair, June 20th, 1-5 p.m. Stop by and say “Hi!”
· Check out my website if you are interested in purchasing one of my books.
· Here’s a link to an interview I did last week for my books “Solemnity Rites” and “A Harmony in the Key of Trees: A Healing Myth”.
· August 1st, at the Virginia Writer’s Club 2026 Symposium, I will be teaching a workshop, “Putting Your Best Poems Forward: How to Successfully Compile Published Poems into a Cohesive Manuscript“.
· The poet Ann Chinnis and I will be having a co-book launch for Neolithic Imaginings: Mythic Explorations of the Unknown (Loralee Clark) and Love Song: Port and Starboard (Ann Chinnis) at The Muse in Norfolk, VA; we’d love to have you come!
"It takes awareness and acknowledgement from ourselves to fill our own creative wells to continue in our brave pursuits." This is such essential advice! We creatives have such an active relationship with ourselves, but is it as supportive as the ones we have with fellow artists? Do we pat ourselves on the back as often as we do others? A valuable question! I will take this to heart and set the intention to fill my own creative well on a daily basis through appreciating all my own efforts and accomplishments. Thank you, Loralee!
Here in Greenwich Village, I never feel as though I am "swimming against a cultural tide for my passions." Most neighbors are in the arts - - actors, Broadway composers, bestselling authors, portraitists, designers, opera tenors, stage managers, dramatists, sculptors. This neighborhood is a cultural crossroads of sorts. I live half a block from Henry James' inspiration for his novel "Washington Square" (1880), a stone's throw from where Edna St. Vincent Millay had her first book published in 1917 "Renascence and Other Poems," on the same block where Maurice Sendak wrote and illustrated "Where the Wild Things Are" (1963), and in the same building where Candace Bushnell wrote "Sex in the City." 🗽 New York, New York has wonderful energy. 🗽