Mindy Kurtmer Turns a Colorful, Curious, and Healing Lens on Inner Worlds
Creative passion can be fluid, something that takes surrendering (whether to a higher power, the moment you’re in, or the deadline you’ve agreed to) and giving up expectations to understand. Only sometimes, knowing that doesn’t come naturally but needs to be taught. This entry in “The Creative Wayfinder’s Compass” puts a spotlight on an artist who helps audiences of all ages understand the mind and psyche in a playful, accessible way.
Welcome to “The Creative Wayfinder’s Compass” from M.K. Hancock, where I do deep dives and interview creative minds across different industries with the same 11 questions. Each creative path is as unique as each person’s lived experience, and that means insights shared here are intended to help other creative folks of any discipline.
This interview highlights multifaceted artist Mindy Kurtmer, a Harvard-educated former tech and legal professional who explores the mind, body, and psyche in her work. Her “Chakra Kittens” series on Webtoon is narrative-focused and features many of the same mindful themes as her other work. Her upcoming synth-pop album aims to capture the frequency of the Divine Feminine, a unique way to evoke healing and emotional resonance.
Mindy Kurtmer’s “Ego Cat Comics” makes the abstract relatable by personifying the ego as a cat. He’s not always trouble, but sometimes he sinks his claws in, and having that metaphor can be helpful for understanding your inner world. In her comics, you can learn how the ego can lead to controlling behavior and how to let go. Her comics explore other ideas too, like practicing radical acceptance via cold showers, the Ego’s Shadow, how to observe our own feelings without being overwhelmed, and much more. At the end of any of her comics, you walk away having learned something helpful in a fun way. Here, Kurtmer shares insights into her creative process, the challenges she’s faced, and how she stays aligned with her artistic purpose.
I feel very grateful for the detour I took because it helped me throw myself into art and creativity with reckless abandon, knowing fully that the grass is not greener on the other side. The artistic path has been difficult in many ways, but I no longer feel like a zombie. I am full of life.
-Mindy Kurtmer
Who are you and what do you create?
My name is Mindy Kurtmer, and I am an ex-UX designer turned ex-litigator turned psychonaut artist. As a psychonaut, I explore the liminal spaces of my inner psyche, mapping out the landscapes of my thoughts and feelings to share with others. As an artist, my specialty is breaking down complex spiritual concepts and illustrating them in simple forms for people of all ages to enjoy and learn from.
I have several mediums. I have been primarily creating short-form comics called “Ego Cat Comics” on Instagram to educate people on the concept of ego. Recently, I have been working on a long-form narrative comic series about Chakras on Webtoon called “Chakra Kittens” and a nonfiction book about my psycho-spiritual healing framework called “Ego Cat and Chakra Kittens” that ties it all together.
My next big project is creating a synth-pop album that captures the frequency of the Divine Feminine. I feel called to make music because I get to actually transmit healing vibes through it instead of just intellectually explaining the concepts, which is helpful but not as penetrative.
What first inspired you to pursue your creative path, and how has that inspiration evolved over time?
I have been an artist all my life, but I never allowed myself to acknowledge it until the pandemic. For the first thirty years of my life, I fully committed to living the sensible and practical life, which led to me working in tech and then graduating from Harvard Law School in 2020 with a plan to specialize in tech law. It took establishing myself in this “safe” path for me to realize that I had no other option but to become an artist because I felt deeply depleted and unfulfilled despite the external success.
I feel very grateful for the detour I took because it helped me throw myself into art and creativity with reckless abandon, knowing fully that the grass is not greener on the other side. The artistic path has been difficult in many ways, but I no longer feel like a zombie. I am full of life.
I also feel an incredible amount of support from my family, friends, community, and the Universe as a whole. It feels very good to be finally aligned with the path that has been calling my heart.
Can you walk us through your creative process? Do you follow specific rituals or habits to get into the flow of your work?
My dear friend and creativity mentor Kristin Hanggi taught me all of this; her guidance was the key that finally unlocked my creative career.
It is very important for me to let my divine feminine/yin receptive energy lead my work. This means that I primarily receive inspiration by surrendering to the flow and following my bliss. I wait for the ideas that want to be birthed through me. They knock when they are ready and are quite persistent.
I refrain from pushing myself to be productive with fear and impatience because I know that everything is unfolding according to divine timing. I also remind myself frequently that there is nothing to prove, nothing to become, and nothing to create out of obligation. I stay in the frequency of play.
Letting the divine feminine lead means that I also have to be my own divine masculine servant who worships the feminine. I do this by creating structure and systems that organize my thoughts and ideas. I make plans to manifest the creative ideas that the divine feminine receives while staying flexible. The divine masculine part of me is here to serve and channel the flow into form.
What themes, ideas, or emotions do you find yourself returning to in your work, and how have they shifted over time?
Trust is probably the biggest theme of my work. When I quit law, I decided to be still and trust that my soul mission would find me. I had no idea what form my new life was going to take. It has been almost four years since then, and my new life has begun crystallizing. I have a much clearer, albeit incomplete, idea of what I am here to do. I have been hyperfixating on the concepts of ego and chakras. They both relate to the concept of unblocking ourselves. Essentially, I believe that I am meant to create work that will convince people to surrender to the higher intelligence because when we try to prove ourselves, we only end up blocking our powers. We have to get out of our own way and allow our destiny to flow through us. We have to trust.
What’s been your biggest creative breakthrough, and how did it change the way you approach your art or writing?
When I worked in tech and law, I knew that I had artistic skills, but I couldn’t truly create art because I didn’t know how to make artistic decisions. Unlike in math or law, there were too many options in art. Problem-solving was easy to me because there were clear destinations. Artistic expression, on the other hand, seemed subjective and arbitrary.
An amazing breakthrough for me was realizing that I am not supposed to create art with my mind. Instead, I learned to channel by listening to how I feel. Now, I listen to my gut instincts and make art that feels good to me. I eventually realized that it is actually easier to make artistic decisions because my feelings are very clear on what they want. The difficult part is trusting that feeling because its desires are often nonsensical—“Why did I want to color that red?” But over time, my body of work has proven itself to me to be deeply inspired and meaningful, even if I had no idea what I was doing at the time. It also keeps me humble to realize that I just birthed the work through my body rather than engineering it myself.
How do you navigate periods of creative block or self-doubt, and what techniques have helped you push through?
Based on chakra theory, it is crucial for my creativity for me to keep my sacral chakra unblocked. The sacral chakra always knows what we want to be doing—what is calling to us. I think the most important technique is not judging what I spend my time on. Sometimes, I feel called to write a random poem to post on Threads. If I feel called to do it, I do it without questioning its purpose or its vulnerability.
A mantra that I use frequently is, “What is my job right now?” Whenever I ask myself this question, I have an answer. For example, right now, my job is typing out responses to these questions. When I confirm that I am doing my job, I can then be fully present and give myself to the moment without judgment. I always have a job in every moment. Sometimes, my job is sitting still and looking at the deer outside of my window. Sometimes, it’s brushing my teeth. I find that as long as I confirm my job and allow myself to exit my mind to become present, I stay creatively unblocked.
How do feedback and criticism play a role in your process? How do you decide what advice to follow and what to set aside?
I believe that our inner psyche is like a country. And we have to play politics. When we begin a novel creative project, such as my synth-pop album, it is crucial to negotiate with our inner self-doubt and allow the new project to sprout despite all the gravel and resistance, metaphorically speaking.
I call it playing politics because when we’re navigating inner conflict rooted in self-doubt, the worst thing we can do is allow external propaganda to convince our citizens to lose trust in their leadership. We have to be extraordinarily careful in whose messages we let into our inner psyche. There are tons of blocked creatives all around us that will use “constructive feedback” as an excuse to stomp out our fragile creativity sprouts.
Basically, what I am trying to say is that I make sure that my faith in myself and my new projects are sturdy enough before I start opening up to criticism. When I feel that my sprout is still fragile, I only accept sunlight and water from people. I tell them, “Hey, it’s been hard for me to believe in myself even though I feel called to create this. Will you hold this vision with me by believing in me?” Again, you have to be careful who you ask because most people don’t have the capacity to believe in others; they don’t even believe in themselves.
Once I feel confident in my project and it becomes “too big to fail,” I try to receive as much constructive feedback as possible from those that I trust. I believe that unchecked art becomes self-indulgent, which then fails to benefit the rest of the collective to its full potential. It helps to not feel too attached to the work by being humble. It’s like being a good parent.
How do you balance personal creative expression with the commercial or external demands of your work?
I think there are two components to artistic work. There is the healing expression aspect of it, which mainly benefits the artist, and then there is the service component of it which mainly benefits the audience. My background in law comes in handy with regard to the service component. When you write legal briefs, the reader always comes first. Their comprehension of what you’re trying to write is the number one priority.
I think when we focus on the service component, commercial success is more easily achievable. However, the healing expression part of the work is the soul of the art, and it cannot be abandoned. I balance these two aspects of art by making sure that I only create from my soul. I make sure the soul drives the engine, and my mind does the communicative work. If I didn’t do that, I think I would feel very depleted. That’s why they call it soul-sucking work, I guess.
What’s one of the most challenging projects you’ve worked on, and how did you overcome the difficulties you face?
I think the nonfiction book I am currently working on—Ego Cat and Chakra Kittens—is probably the most challenging project I’ve worked on. I don’t think I have yet to overcome the difficulties. Going back to my response above, I know what I want to communicate: the soul of the framework. But the challenge now is to do it in a way that won’t confuse or bore the readers, and that has been stressful to me—the distillation process. I believe that I’ll figure it out with time.
How do you stay motivated and disciplined, especially during times when inspiration is lacking or inconsistent?
I have a weird method of staying motivated and disciplined. Every once in a while, I look around my surroundings, and I say, “I give up.” I mentally give up all hopes of money, success, recognition, and achievement. I simply accept reality as it is and relieve myself of any pressure I may feel of “making it.” I tell myself that the world doesn’t need my work. It doesn’t need me. Then I let out a big sigh and then do what I want to do. It helps me stay in the frequency of play. Usually, I end up working even harder after I let go of expectations.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out, or to an artist who’s struggling to find or trust their creative voice?
The advice I would give to someone starting out is to find the weird cracks in their psyche. The cracks that make them interested in weird things that no one else is, whether it’s a specific material, sound, technique, or style. Then, I would tell them to lean into the crack with a screwdriver and keep digging in. All the cracks lead to the same place. But it is our unique journeys to the end that shape our artistic careers.
M.K. Hancock here, and I want to say thank you for reading The Creative Wayfinder’s Compass, a publication for the edification of creative minds. Every creative journey is unique, but they all come with lessons worth sharing. The creative, collected, and compassionate world of Mindy Kurtmer’s “Ego Cat” and “Chakra Kittens” are soon to be joined by a book. Follow her on Instagram to stay tuned for updates.
Explore the rest of The Creative Wayfinder’s Compass to read interviews that cover a variety of experiences in the arts. If you’re interested in support on your personal path, you can discover what my creative and writing coaching looks like.
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What’s a way you’ve explored your psyche in your work? Leave a reply to share your thoughts and/or experiences in the comments below!
