Creativity as Care: Beginning a 100 Day Practice

Lately, I’ve been digging into the topic of art therapy. The deeper I explore the practice of creativity as care, the more I realize how closely this defines my relationship with art. My connection to visual art has always been a form of self-care, shaped by whatever season of life I’m in. A response, not a product.

Looking back, I can see this as a throughline. Creativity as self-care has always been there, even before I had language for it.

In college, I chose an Advertising Design degree because it felt practical, even though a studio art degree was deeply alluring. I worked in freelance and in-house graphic design roles that were unfulfilling. I eventually landed in a teaching career because our family needed stability, and teaching art brought me closest to myself. Each of these choices made sense at the time. What I see now is how consistently I was trying to stay connected to creativity while navigating responsibility.

There have also been seasons when I put pressure on my creativity to make money. Out of necessity, or as a way to escape the rigidity of being an employee. This has never worked. Instead, it has led to self-doubt and discouragement.

I see this tension of shaping creativity into something it’s not in small, familiar places:

• In workshops where I wasn’t interested in mastering techniques as much as making the work my own.

• In the classroom, my resistance to reducing art to grades and numbers.

• In the contrast between murals where I had full creative freedom and those shaped by a client’s vision.

  
  

What continues to fascinate me is how closely art-making mirrors the human experience. Intuitive, unplanned processes reflect the way life unfolds - how the unexpected becomes a beautiful part of the story. There is so much to explore in how what happens visually can mirror what’s happening internally.

Recently, I sat down with my sketchbook with the intention of filming a reel for my Instragram. It wasn’t working. The plan felt heavy. After the day I’d had, I didn’t need more effort - I needed something that felt like breathing.

So I let go of the plan. I grabbed some saved packaging with cut-out circles and began tracing and layering them with paint pens. I stopped when I felt tired. Days later, I returned and added color as a low-pressure, meditative gesture.

That moment reminded me that care doesn’t require productivity, only attention.

This has me thinking about the 100 Day Project, a yearly global commitment to daily making. I’m approaching it not as a challenge, but as a container, a way to practice creativity as care. One small visual gesture a day that creates or honors space. Space as anything that reduces pressure and allows listening or truth to arrive.

If I feel rushed, I’ll make fewer marks. 

If I feel scattered, I’ll repeat one shape.

If I feel heavy, I’ll leave space untouched.

This feels less like a beginning and more like making room. 

(I plan to share more as the process unfolds.)