Coffee and Creatives Season 4 updates
Updated: Jul 23, 2021
It’s hard to believe that Coffee and Creatives is entering its fourth season. It felt like just yesterday Anna and I were sitting on the floor of my cluttered apartment talking about art and wishing there were more podcasts about creativity (although now I know of so many!). It’s almost two years later, and Coffee and Creatives has grown in ways I didn’t expect. We started with a limited vision of just being a podcast, and now we are a creative community with a blog and an active social media presence as well as a podcast. In this blogpost, I’m looking to highlight some of the changes in this upcoming season, and some things that won't change.
Creatives
The biggest change for this upcoming season is a change in our creative team. Anna worked very hard for us on our social media, blogs, branding, and much more. As her family and career grew, Anna felt the need to step down from Coffee and Creatives. The three of us understood, but obviously felt the loss of Anna’s energy and fun loving spirit.
After much thought and consideration, we decided to invite a fourth member. Moving forward, we wanted to keep four core creatives for several reasons. One of them being, as the Coffee and Creatives community grows, we wanted to ensure that all of our creatives had enough time to work on their personal creative endeavours and not be consumed by crafting our community, podcast, or blog. Also, if a Creative needed to take some time off for one reason or another, the others wouldn’t be over burdened (ie I’m having a Baby in October and will be taking several months off for that).
We decided upon Nate through an interview process over several weeks. Nate, a close friend of Rebeccah’s, has listened to Coffee and Creatives since Season 1, and is an active member of a band, a songwriter, a graphic artist, and much more. Nate was one of the winner’s of our art show back in January, All the World is Your Canvas. You can see his winning song here: https://www.coffeeandcreativesproject.com/nate-hutchings
Book
This season we’re reading/studying Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art. I have read this book several times over the years and have gifted it to many a creative. Pressfeild doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to creative health, he’s straightforward and sometimes brutal in his approach. This book is different in that our others we’ve studied in a couple of ways, one that it does not have assignments. When we decided to use this book for Season 4, we decided to stretch ourselves by taking turns every week by taking turns crafting the assignments. I’m so excited not only to learn from Pressfield and his wisdom, but also from Beccah, Christina, and Nate.
Creative Community Newsletter
Launching with our new season, we’re looking to begin a paid for subscription newsletter for $4 a month. We'll be using this Newsletter to encourage you on your creative journey. In our weekly newsletter, we will include a phone background, a weekly habit tracker of helpful creative habits (that we've found to be encouraging), a list of what one of our Creatives is consuming, a creative highlight (one of our listeners/followers), and, of course, updates on our blog and website! One of the reasons we’re doing this is to cover the costs of running Coffee and Creatives. Our zoom account, website, canva account, giveaways and other such expenses have all come out of our personal finances at this point. Although I am happy to put money towards Coffee and Creatives (as are the other Creatives), we felt like it was time to allow others to contribute if they so wished. We wanted to make sure that we were offering a continuation of our podcast, and encouraging creative growth. Along with the Newsletter, we are in the process of creating a platform for creatives to share their work and get feedback. We’re thinking perhaps of a slack channel?
Things that Are Not Changing
Our core mission hasn’t changed! We want to craft a community for creative growth. We want all of our platforms (podcast, instagram, facebook, newsletter etc.) to encourage you and others that wish to be creative or be creatively inspired. Creating from a healthy place takes a lot of work, throughout the seasons I’ve worked through harmful mindsets and habits that weren’t serving me or my art. I’m so thankful for Anna, Beccah, Christina, and Nate who push me to grow as a person, not just as an artist. This is what I hope Coffee and Creatives has done and continues to do for you.