Creating from Trust, Play and Intuition
Artist Kellie Day on "The Greater Creative Channel"
“It’s a whole new frontier that happens when I let go and trust. I spent the first half of my life adventuring. I just realized, it’s internal now, the great adventure.” —Kellie Day (image by Kellie Day)
Preview: Emerging Form Episode 128
“I didn’t want to paint from the head, but from emotion and spirit,” says artist Kellie Day. It took leaving her career as a graphic designer to “get to the place beyond making a pretty picture, when you connect to the greater creative channel.” In this episode, we speak about how how “shadow careers” can be an attempt to get closer to our passion, how to sink into a creative space, the importance of both structure and freedom in a creative practice, what holds us back from our passion, and the miracles that come from accidents.
Kellie Day is mixed-media artist whose paintings hold serendipitous treasures. She uses Sufi poems, stenciled spray paint, handmade stamps and bold drips of acrylic paint applied with a paint syringe to create rich textured layers of collage and acrylics. This unconventional approach has caught the eye of major brands like Trader Joe’s, The North Face, and Alpinist Magazine who have featured her work in their collections. She’s also worked as a US Forest Service Ranger, firefighter, and graphic designer, and brings both structure and great freedom to her role as an International Art Mentor, helping women discover their artistic voices and explore their own creativity.
And we have news! Starting this month, Emerging Form is also a radio show on KVNF radio. You can hear us every other Tuesday from 6:30pm to 7pm mountain time. Listen on the air, or stream online here:
https://www.kvnf.org/
Listen tomorrow (1/7), then again on 1/21, and so on. We’re excited that our first on-air episode was Laura Pritchett on 12/10.
What We’re Reading and Listening to:
Rosemerry:
One of my favorite films at the Telluride Film Festival last fall was Emilia Pérez, a film about four strong women, in which a violent Mexican drug lord hires a lawyer to help him become a woman. What a film of darkness and luminosity, transformation. What parts of ourselves can we change? What is intransmutable? How do we forgive ourselves? Each other? Oh yeah, and it’s a MUSICAL! Directed by the phenomenal French director Jacques Audiard. You can watch it now on Netflix.
I am reading again Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems, which is a collection of poems by William Stafford, who wrote a poem a day, drawn from his 50 books that he published in his lifetime. One of his quotes in the introduction, related through his son Kim (also a talented poet), is “Let’s talk recklessly.” He was a poet who believed in peace, in conversation, in connection. And this particular collection knocks my socks off on every page.
Christie:
There are so many reasons to admire and love President Jimmy Carter, but one of the most amazing things he did was help virtually eradicate a deadly disease. Guinea Worm was striking about 3.5 million people every year when it was taken up as a cause by The Carter Center, the nongovernmental organization founded by the former president and his wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter. In 2024, there were 24 cases in the whole world. Scientific American explains the significance of this work by the Carters. I mean, come on! Guinea worm is only the second human disease in history to be on target for complete elimination. Also, the Carter Center’s motto is “Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope.” Can we please have more of that?
It’s hard to feel positive about politics right now, but Julia Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s interview with Nancy Pelosi on her podcast, Wiser Than Me, gave me a dose of hope. Pelosi talks about her long career and what it was like to be the first woman at the table during some important political moments. She also offered some useful advice: “Don’t agonize, organize!”
In Art Class Making Aspen Trees
for Kellie Day
Everything is fixable,
said Kellie, as she
sprayed her painting
with water, then
held the canvas
on its side until
white paint streaked
across her forest, and
for six hours I lived
in that fixable world
of paint and paper
and brushes and
stencils, a world
of improvisation
and play, a world
where I wandered
in pale green and
deep blue, where
I trusted a glade
of my own making,
rested in that shade
where there were
no problems, just
new invitations to
reimagine what
might happen next,
and smudges became
birds, and tears became
trees, and my sorrow
became an aspen
grove where nothing
was fixed, but for six
sacred hours there
was nothing the
light couldn’t touch.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
A Note About Paid Subscriptions:
First, we want to thank ALL our subscribers! We are so grateful you join us in this conversation about what it is to engage with yourself, the world and others in a creative way. And a BIG thank you to our paid subscribers. You make this podcast possible. Starting this month, only our paid subscribers will receive our bonus episodes as a thank you for their financial support.
This week, Kellie talks with us about the importance of going too far (“If you don’t let yourself go wild and free and screw up, then you are holding back”), making art as a single mom, creating art for yourself, being gentle toward your younger self, and just what ten minutes of creative practice might do. If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can go now to our website, EmergingForm.substack.com, or by clicking the button below. Thank you!
Two Questions:
(share your answers with us here on Substack or in our FB group)
What are some of your favorite prompts to get your creativity jumpstarted?
What surprises you about your own creative practice?
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