Accompanying a creative person in their practice (DYCP)

see also: accompanying a process

Arts Council England have grants for individual creatives called Develop Your Creative Practice, and I can accompany someone who is in receipt of that funding in and through that process. (Note that I don't accompany the application process.) I can also do this for those who just want to examine, realise, or have general support for their creative practice and/or their own access support needs around that practice.

I call my approach to this kind of work 'accompanying' because to me, terms like 'mentoring' or 'coaching' imply that I have stuff the other person doesn't have, but I believe we all individually have what we need inside us already. To quote someone I have accompanied:

“Working with Jenifer was like a gentle archaeological dig of my work. But she was also a curator. Through writing and talking, she made an archive of my thoughts and ideas. The themes and questions of my practice were gently lifted out and brushed off so I could see them - often for the first time.”

I accompany people in realising and refining their core creative drives, and making sure those drives are applied everywhere they make work, with a view to more fully realising their creative intentions. Someone compared it to untangling yarn, and that feels right.

It can be really challenging to find ways to make work in the world right now, so it seems especially important to have a place that isn’t about the opportunity to make work, but rather, about staying focused on the creative impulse to make the work in the first place.

“Jen is the absolute boss of helping you figure out what you didn't know you needed, what you're actually scared of and how to not be total chaos in the face of your own creativity.”

Through conversation, I accompany people in finding what they need inside them, and extracting it with a view to more fully realising their creative intentions every single time they make any work. Someone compared it to untangling yarn, and that feels right.

It’s mostly gentle discussion, beginning with me getting a basic understanding of the general work the accompanied person makes, their umbrella goals, and their specific goal for this process. I can also accompany an assessment of the journey made for evaluation report purposes.

The accompanying process aims to:

connect with creative intentions
consider how those are currently being realised
clarify the onward journey

If you'd like to have a chat about your specific goals, for a DYCP application or at any other time in your creative journey, drop me a line to jenifertoksvig at gmail or tweet me @toksvig