1. Collaborating with people who would otherwise work alone is very helpful. You need to get out of your writer silo and talk to other creatives. Often, I’ve found in my own group that we’re each working from a similar foundation of ideas yet vastly different in expression. I believe this is because creating art is a form of activism. You take a repressed idea, your own and/or society’s, and you bring it to light. Even art created for pure entertainment says something about the world. To speak through words or images is to activate. Very soon, you’ll go from working alone to joining a social movement. It’s powerful.

2. A writer creates images with words that link experience and emotion. It’s utterly useful to get the opinions of other image makers. It makes you view your work in an entirely different way. It’s like going from page to polyhedron. Plus, working together and exhibiting together spawns ideas and new ways to view yourself, not just your work. My writing behavior changed when I stopped thinking of myself as a writer and started thinking of myself as a text artist. Try it. Things shift. Let them.

3. Let’s face it: though there may be smiles over tea, biscuits, or gin, your writing group is competitive with all manner of unsaid bias and ego. Sadly, it goes with the territory, and there is always one (or more) who is self-seeking and exhausting. It’s hard to get that balance right. Not so in an artist collective where everyone is working in different mediums. While you may be competing in the same general arena, you are on totally different shopfronts and can actually support one another without any of the draining pettifoggery. It feels free and exhilarating, which are the key ingredients for prolific work.

So, there you have it. Pretty compelling, I’d say. Honestly, being a part of an artist collective is one of the working highlights of my career. It is transformative to play an individual part in an act that is greater than the self. When your purpose serves the whole, you step away from the intensity of your personal investment and view your work as one of the many multiple components of consciousness. Ultimately, as an artist, you are already participating in a collective movement toward awareness, and to do so with group intention and friendship is rewarding beyond measure.

As always, wishing you luck and inspiration with your writing.

Be well friends,

Gret Heffernan.

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