When working on the design and launch of my website with Rosa last summer I was adamant that I wanted to keep my creative practice and my coaching career separate. Over the Christmas break I’ve had a re-think. So my New Year challenge is to articulate my creative coaching offer alongside my creative practice. Learning to understanding how the two merge, feed and support one another.

I’d been waiting for this Deep Listening training for a long time. Having taken part in a two hour workshop at Arnolfini last October I was totally inspired to learn (and listen) more. I discovered an online course at The Centre for Deep Listening based at Lawrence University in Wisconsin so put my name down for three consecutive Sunday afternoons this November.

When I allow myself to slow down and be open in my practice that’s almost always when synchronicity comes into play. While away on the yoga retreat Jess, our teacher, told us stories of Indian and Greek goddesses, their power and their symbolism. Only a few weeks earlier I’d started work on a new project exploring the power of older women, representations of the crone, the hag, fragmented bodies and the image of the puppet.

We judge ourselves so harshly as artists, and are judged by others in terms of our track record - of exhibitions, sales of work, funding and commissions. The definitions are drawn for us and we impose these on ourselves. Yet surely there’s room to interpret the word ‘artist’ in as many different ways as there are creative responses in the world?