Interview with Poet and Cincinnati Writing Community Leader Christine Wilson on Sustainable Creativity
Welcome to The Creative Wayfinder’s Compass, a publication from author and writing coach M.K. Hancock featuring in-depth interviews with creative minds across disciplines. Each guest answers the same 11 questions, and eventually, all interviews will be collected into a book. This edition features Christine Wilson, a poet, artist, and the Executive Director of Women Writing for (a) Change, a national network of writing circles rooted in authenticity, community, and voice.
“Hierarchy is the death of creativity. I need folks who want to nurture me and the work, and I want to be that person for others as well. Someone who says, “I hear what you are trying to say, and this could help make your aim truer.”
Christine Wilson
Who are you and what do you create?
I am a poet, writer, artist, and creator of experiences. I’m the Executive Director of Women Writing for (a) Change, a local writing organization with affiliates across the country. Poetry is my mother tongue, and I process the world predominantly through verse. I’ve worked creatively in a lot of ways. I tend to have big visions, like for days, and have worked painting murals and designing experiences globally. My goal is to break down the wall between myself, the maker/curator, and the experiencer in every form in which I engage.
What first inspired you to pursue your creative path, and how has that inspiration evolved over time?
I was writing poetry in my head to the rhythm of the tree swing in my backyard before I could write. I also remember the sensation of drawing an eye on a human or animal and feeling it in my own eye. I’m a messy artist. It’s a full-body experience for me, and I feel a one-ness with whatever I make. I don’t remember really choosing a creative path, just knowing that wherever I was or whatever I did, I would create. The evolution came when I realized that pressing that urge down causes me to be depressed and anxious. I often wonder if our mental health epidemic is really just people longing to make, but pressed into capitalism’s workplace. At this point, I’m very aware that making is surviving for me. I don’t choose it, I am compelled.
Can you walk us through your creative process? Do you follow specific rituals or habits to get into the flow of your work?
Ritual is everything in writing and art. Writing, for me, starts as an unsettled feeling or a connection between two thoughts, images, or concepts. The truth is, I’m always curating space to listen to myself and the world around me. I make time to write regularly, either in a writing circle at Women Writing, at my writing desk, or anywhere that resonates for the poem or art that is bubbling up. I light a candle and start by reading a poem or three. It’s like a warm-up. Then I start writing without letting myself pause to get ahead of the editor in my head. Often this means that the first 1-2 stanzas are garbage, but then, a rhythm starts to form. Getting it on the page to me is sort of like gathering supplies, because the work of crafting it into the form it needs to be in takes most of my time. Sometimes I can begin to craft it right away. Other times, I need to return the next day, or year. Follow-up steps always involve other readers and workshoppers. Ultimately, I make the final calls and I’ve grown to trust myself.
What themes, ideas, or emotions do you find yourself returning to in your work, and how have they shifted over time?
Themes of gender, nature, emotion, justice, and mental health repeat for me. I think creating is never a stand alone act, it’s an act of connecting. It’s taking what already exists and making a new connection, (or an old connection in a new way.) Observing the world is step one for gathering inspiration. I find there is a moment, then, when those observations collide into something new. I feel that collision as a rush of ideas and energy that motivates me to get it out onto the page. I don’t sit around waiting to be inspired, I pursue it.
What’s been your biggest creative breakthrough, and how did it change the way you approach your art or writing?
People around me frequently have seen me as a generator for new ideas, but I feared, secretly, that the well would run dry. In a season of wrestling this belief with writer friends was a day I walked out of my house to see that the snowdrift crabapple in my front yard had blown all of its petals into heaps in my front yard. It really looked like snowdrifts! An epiphany! Although it lost its petals every year, this snowdrift look was new. It hit me that though themes, seasons, and concepts repeat for me, I am different every time I meet them again. It was the moment I moved from a scarcity mentality of ideas, art and writing, to understanding that what can be made is endless and abundant. And of course, I wrote about it.
How do you navigate periods of creative block or self-doubt, and what techniques have helped you push through?
I believe art is human. I’m not making an anti-AI statement here, it’s just that unless it inspires, compels, provokes, or raises emotion for a human, for me, it isn’t art. Creativity can’t function like a machine. Creatives can’t endlessly produce without staying inspired. For me, that means reading fiction and poetry, going to art exhibits with a point of view, observing birds, or noticing the way the magnolia leaves fall off the tree and hold rainwater like little cups. I take awe seriously and playfully. No one burns out creating for arts sake, we burn out by being content generators. I let my personal inspirations infiltrate my professional and personal creating.
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 love this question! Women Writing for (a) Change became my home base for writing when I discovered that it was constructive feedback delivered with kindness. I don’t want someone who just says, “I love it, it’s awesome.” I also will absolutely not tolerate someone who is condescending. Hierarchy is the death of creativity. I need folks who want to nurture me and the work, and I want to be that person for others as well. Someone who says, “I hear what you are trying to say, and this could help make your aim truer.” I need others to see what I can’t see, because none of us can clearly see our own art. I take advice from people I trust, and feedback that resonates as true, although sometimes you have to sit with it. I don’t take advice from people whose lives and art lack integrity to me.
How do you balance personal creative expression with the commercial or external demands of your work?
I lead a writing organization, and I can only do that with integrity if I keep writing. So, I make it a priority. I take a class in the organization that I lead. I’m pretty sharp, but I can get dull if I don’t also stay in places where I can get vulnerable and say the hard things my artform needs to say. If at all possible, include space to be honest and playful in your art form, inside your work hours. If you only make, make, make, and don’t play and stay honest, your art will suffer.
What’s one of the most challenging projects you’ve worked on, and how did you overcome the difficulties you faced?
I returned from a trip to India, where we painted murals and art with girls who had been rescued from sex trafficking, to turn around and make a multi-room submersive experience to raise money and awareness for this cause. My emotions were raw after what I witnessed, and it’s hard to create from a fresh wound. I recruited help and made room to talk about what I was feeling, not because I wanted to, but because it was necessary for my health and the health of the project. I would shift the way I scheduled that at this point in my life, but what I created definitely showed my own rawness and was lauded by those who felt it.
How do you stay motivated and disciplined, especially during times when inspiration is lacking or inconsistent?
I don’t, and you shouldn’t. You are giving away irreplaceable parts of yourself if you do, chunks of your mental health. I have built rhythms to sustain, but if this gets out of balance, I make room to get inspired. I have a busy work life and home life, so this isn’t easy. I just make it a priority. You have the power to craft your life as much as you have the power to make. Craft a sustainable one.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out, or to an artist who’s struggling to find or trust their creative voice?
Find a community that supports your craft. If you can’t find it, make it. Having good people around you makes all the difference in the world. It’s not good to shift from the intimacy of making to very public sharing. That step is just too big. I need smaller ways to be accepted and heard first. When a poet reads at an open mic, I can tell immediately if the reader has community. Good artists and writers find their peers.
Christine Wilson’s take on art as play, ritual, and resistance resonated with me, but can we talk about her snowdrift crabapple epiphany? Those moments where we’re drawn into reflection by nature are so beautiful. It’s so easy to forget that inspiration doesn’t always roar or show up at our door.
If interviews like this feed you, I’d love to send more your way. I share one every month(ish) from creatives across fields and backgrounds, each answering the same 11 questions.
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