It's the Annual Epiphany Episode!

Rosemerry & Christie reflect on the 2024 in creative practice and look forward

“I want a word that means sexy moderation.” —Rosemerry

Preview: Emerging Form Episode 127

It’s the epiphany episode! Every year Rosemerry & Christie think back on the year in creative practice to see what we had hoped we might explore and do … and what actually happened. So many revelations in this episode! Full of laughter and sincerity, celebration and curiosity. We pick new words for 2025 to help guide our process, and this is the year we do away with magic wands and just try to dream of what we might really achieve.

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 tonight (12/24), then again on 1/7, 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:

• What are your devils? How do you get in your own way? I have been thinking about this a lot, and then along came this Marie Howe poem, “The Seven Devils,” in which I both wanted to laugh and cry at how true it felt for me. Though she wrote it around 15 years ago, it feels so true to me now.

• I am so glad that Conclave has finally come out in theaters—I love the conversations that my daughter and I had about religion, gender, change, ethics, and power after we saw it. It feels like a great doorway for so many of the conversations I want our world to be having now.

Christie:

• As of today, I’ve read 42 books in 2024. At Last Word On Nothing, I revisited my list and picked my six favorites. (Lots of competition! I fell in love with many books this year.) Read my list, with comments here.

• One of the last books I’ve read this year was one my book club picked, The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman. This is a novel about art and art monsters and the internal and external forces that drive an artist. The book follows the life of the son of a famous painter. That artist, Bear Bavinsky, is the center of the story, and he’s such an unlikeable character that I initially had trouble getting into the book. I’m glad I stuck with it though, because I really enjoyed the exploration of what makes good art, the stories told about art (versus reality), what kind of behavior is excuseable in an artist, and how the realities of making art are different for men and women. The novel also has a lot to say about authenticity, fame and the unquenchable drive to win a toxic parent’s approval.

• I’m not sure how I stumbled up Nicholson Baker’s book, Finding A Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art, but I’m so glad I did. The heavily illustrated book chronicles the award-winning author’s attempt to learn to paint. He shares the paintings he aspires to recreate, and his many attempts as he tries now techniques and approaches. Along the way, he gets into the reasons to even try something like this, the teachers he turns to (which include things like pintrest and instagram) and without getting too philosophical, answers the question: why make art?

---

For Auld Lang Syne

We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet,
says the song, and I would give you
the cup, friend, would fill it
with whiskey or water or whatever
would best meet your thirst.

I fill it with the terrifying beauty
of tonight’s bonfire—giant licks
of red and swirls of blue that consume
what is dead and melt the ice
and give warmth to what is here.

I fill it with moonrise and snow crystal
and the silver river song beneath the ice.
With the boom of fireworks and with laughter
that persists through tears. With
Lilac Wine and Over the Rainbow and Fever.

I toast you with all the poems we’ve yet to write
and all the tears we’ve yet to weep,
I hold the cup to your lips,
this chalice of kindness, we’ll drink it yet,
though the days are cold, the nights so long.

—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, we talk about some of our listeners’ epiphanies from 2024 and creative goals for 2025. 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)

1. What have you learned about your creative process in the last year?

2. What are your creative goals for 2025?

Emerging Form is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.