Inside the Creative Process; Conversations with Artists, Writers, Performers, & Creatives – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode, Alicia talks about her favorite part of the creative process, the epiphanies that surprise and delight all of us and give clarity about the direction our work is going. Alicia also talks about how she creates space to allow more epiphanies to happen by allowing herself to be in the process of experimenting and playing as often as possible.

But it's not always easy in the "real" world to make time for creative play. Producing a final product becomes our obsession as artists. But what if this thought is actually stunting our creativity?

Alicia has created a course, Creative Rhythms; The Art of Pause, Play, & Epiphany that is meant to support you in forming a habit of play and authenticity. On February 24th at 9am pst / 12pm est, Alicia will host a free intro class. If you are interested, please sign up:

https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=25643833&appointmentType=74530187

If you enjoyed this episode, please check out Episode 31 about Play in the Creative Process: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inside-the-creative-process/id1600742208?i=1000685308673

Or Episode 30 about stillness: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inside-the-creative-process/id1600742208?i=1000684385459

Follow Alicia on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/aliciapetersonbaskel/

In this episode, I speak with Alyssa Rose and Jesse Greenfield about some simple and loving ways to be inclusive of transgender and queer people in our community. They share what it feels like to be trans in this anti-trans world we are living in and how micro-affirmations can make all the difference between life and death.

Alyssa Rose (they/them) is an artist and dreamer of liberation. They create paintings, collage, sculpture, movement-art, and healthier cultural ecosystems in dance communities. Currently, Alyssa serves as the Operations Coordinator at DISCO RIOT, a community-centered dance nonprofit based in San Diego that supports local independent artists. As a disabled and queer/trans person, Alyssa feels called to guide and empower marginalized people through embodiment. Alyssa’s ongoing interests span research around Buddha Dharma, collective liberation, neuroqueering community care, and how these areas of focus can be expressed through art and artistic process. Find them at https://www.alyssarosecreative.com/

Jesse Greenfield (they/them), MPH, CHES is a public health educator and improviser who loves using storytelling as a tool to empower individuals and communities to live their fullest and healthiest lives. Jesse facilitates applied improvisation workshops to support people in improving their spoken and unspoken communication with others, creating joyful connections, and being effective advocates for themselves and their communities. Find them at: https://www.kaleidoscopetrainingcenter.com/

Please subscribe to this podcast and follow Alicia on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/aliciapetersonbaskel/

If you enjoyed this podcast, you may also enjoy my interview with Danna Yehev about the essence of creativity: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inside-the-creative-process/id1600742208?i=1000669289666

You may also enjoy my Interview with Eric Geiger from 2022 (Episode 3): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inside-the-creative-process/id1600742208?i=1000550669672

Eric Geiger's writing about the work:

"PLEASUREHOOD is a dance directed and performed by Eric Geiger with collaborators and performers Jordan Daley and Nick McGhee. Through PLEASUREHOOD I have been asking myself- how can I create more space for what I don’t know, don’t understand, or have not yet experienced? How does the work, the choreography, the “what” and the “how,” create more space for otherness, more space for sensing through my moving self, our moving selves? How can we sense more through the work? What if the choreography holds the question- how can we create the conditions in order to sense more, feel more, drop into pleasure more? Radical Tenderness Radical Intimacy Radical Sensuousness The dance and the dancing is tender, intimate and sensuous. As Jose Esteban Munoz talks about in his book Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, PLEASUREHOOD offers us an opportunity to find ecstasy together. Can how we are with each other be the material of the work? Can tenderness be the choreography? Can intimacy be the material we’re tending to? What have we been doing in the process of PLEASUREHOOD? We’ve been organizing, reorganizing, and disorganizing ourselves in order to arrive in our dancing?  We’ve been wildly moving through space, messing with time, destabilizing our habitual patterns and making room for risk taking and aliveness. We’ve been shaking and shaking it up.  We’ve been finding value in being in it together while simultaneously listening to our responsive/responsible selves. We've been making something and giving it away simultaneously. We’ve been experimenting like children playing scientist, who mix ingredients together just to see what will happen. Or, like alchemists, making something common into something magnificent. We’ve been practicing generosity together. We’ve been falling in love. PLEASUREHOOD is “of” our queerness which is different from “about” our queerness. And, our queerness informs all aspects of this dance. We are Queer and the three of us, together, exist in multiple intersections of identity, race, age, and privilege. My desire is that through the ongoing practice, through the dancing, through this kind of  togetherness, we transcend who we might believe we are.  And it’s different each time we are together, in each moment, in each place, with each witness, each time. PLEASUREHOOD offers us an opportunity to question and transform who we are rather than expressing who we are. Through the performance of PLEASUREHOOD we are continuing to figure it out. With PLEASUREHOOD I’m interested in attempting to create an arena of thought. With each attempt at dancing PLEASUREHOOD Jordan, Nick, and I step into uncertainty and vulnerability. It is inevitable for compassion and empathy, through this vulnerability, to become part of the work’s lineage. Paying attention to the process changes the process. The work does not attempt to be representational. It does not depict compassion or empathy but generates a context in which the value system of the process and its lineage is the actual desired change. Through PLEASUREHOOD we become permeable to the world. That which increases our capacity as artists also increases our capacities as human beings."

Find Eric Geiger on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericandrewgeiger/

Work with Alicia in the Creative Chrysalis: https://mailchi.mp/c56f8e7440c5/creative-chrysalis

Last week, I performed a dance piece that I had been researching for three years, but even so my self doubt became a problem for me to overcome. Was I prepared? Should I be doing more? Is what I'm working on worthy of being seen? All questions that creeped into my mind once I decided to share my work in performance. It was worth taking some time with these fears and questions, because in the end, I was able to make magic. 

Listen to this episode for all of my pre-performance thoughts.

Follow Alicia on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/aliciapetersonbaskel/

Work with Alicia to create your masterpiece: https://app.acuityscheduling.com/catalog.php?owner=25643833

You are Invited: On September 26th, 2024 @ 10am PDT, I will be performing an improvised solo dance piece at the Feldenkrais Institute of San Diego. I would be delighted if you would join me either in person or over Zoom. In this episode, I speak about the logistics that help me create a container for this performance. 

Feldenkrais Institute: 3680 Sixth Ave, San Diego, CA 92103

ZOOM LINK: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89750458556?pwd=LeDbpsUGQVLIm8HvxYE2HrFmwb71Nh.1

ZOOM Meeting Password: 373526

Follow Alicia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliciapetersonbaskel/

"Creativity is being who you are no matter who that is" - Danna Yahav.

Danna's insatiable curiosity has taken her down every spiritual, healing, and self growth rabbit hole for the last 15 years. Her specialization is Human Design, shadow work, radical self acceptance and liberation from a highly syndicated world. The work she has done to marry Human Design & psychology has brought over 5,000 people to download her Human Design Shadow Chart. Her workbooks on Amazon have sold thousands of copies in multiple countries. Danna continues to shift others' perspectives, inspire them to find meaning in their lives, safety in their choices, and the courage to be who they are through her programs, on Instagram (@this.is.danna), and on her podcast (A Tonic for Lunacy).

How do you feel about confusion in your artistic process? In this solo episode, Alicia argues that confusion is not something that we have to fix but rather an indicator that we are onto something new and different and uniquely our own. 

Follow Alicia on Instagram

I recorded this episode on Tuesday, August 27th - the 6th anniversary of my mother's passing. In this solo episode, I speak about how I'm no longer trying to avoid feeling my grief and instead am finding ways to process this emotion into expression...into Art. What is your medium for expressing your emotions artistically? If you don't know, maybe now is the time to consider honoring your creativity. 

Follow Alicia on Instagram: @aliciapetersonbaskel

You may also be interested in these podcast episodes:

Grief is Part of the Process

Engineering Improvisation

Check out Alicia's Breathwork offerings:

15 Day De-Stress

Virtual Group Breathwork

1:1 Breathwork Sessions

Kelli Perrault, known professionally as The Pleasant Creative, works in a variety of mediums from digital illustration to screenprinting, linocut printing, mural painting, and (as she reveals in our interview) just about anything that ignites that spark of inspiration in her imagination. Kelli speaks about her journey toward recognizing that her job as an artist is to see/share the magic that already exists in the everyday and to encourage others to recognize that they too are artists. Kelli's artwork is showing at The Double Dip Gallery in Lodi, California and you can shop her vibrant retro inspired prints on her website.

Links for Kelli:

Shop her Collection

Visit her Website

Follow @pleasantcreative.co on Instagram

Links for Alicia:

15 Day De-Stress

Follow @aliciapetersonbaskel on Instagram

Tara Knight is an animator, filmmaker, media designer for live performance, and associate professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder who works in a multiplicity of ways and with a multiplicity of genres. If a project terrifies her, she knows she's on the right track. In this episode, Tara shares with us a process cycle that can be applied by artists, engineers, astronomers, and really anyone who is creating something. This cycle can help us find where we are getting stuck in our own process and provides us with a shared language with others who "do what we do" but in a different field. 

For more from Tara Knight, please visit her website: https://taraknight.net

Find me on Instagram: @aliciapetersonbaskel