Have you ever experienced hard seasons in your creative life, times when the desire to make art feels thwarted? In our media-saturated world where every success is trumpeted, we need to talk about the difficulties that can beset our creativity and the fallout that results. This episode is a deep, honest dive into matters that are not often discussed among artists. Do we know who we are apart from our making when the wheels fall off? Do we have a production mentality about our creativity or can we embrace the mystery of an artistic life (and, really, life in general)? What does it mean to balance doing and being as we care for our souls in those hard spaces? These and other issues—with a little Richard Rohr thrown in—will be explored in this episode.

Memoirist Addie Zierman joins host Judith Hougen in conversation about walking through creative wilderness. Addie shares her story of achieving her dream of publication—a season when everything seemed to be going exactly as planned—only to eventually find her life and her dream crumbling around her. Zierman and Hougen share the difficulties of unwanted detours into the desert and offer reflections regarding the gifts such seasons can bring.

Episode-Related Links:

Addie Zierman’s website

Jenny Klukken’s art and music website

Cities Arts Collective

This first episode of the Cities Arts Podcast is a bit of potpourri with something for everyone, featuring a roundtable discussion with three women who are starting the Cities Arts Collective, a fledgling arts initiative in Minnesota. CAC director and podcast host Judith Hougen facilitates a wide-ranging discussion with two members of the core team, Heather Walker Peterson and Brienna Rossiter. The conversation begins with ruminations on CAC’s mission and values and evolves into issues surrounding what it means to be an artist and a person of faith in the world. The conversation is rich with thoughts on how art, beauty, and spirituality affect us as human beings and how they shape the larger culture.