What a difference a table can create. After much labour of love "Barkton Place" home D.I.Y. Project was completed and the table with six chairs now was covered in food and glasses of wine and other beverages. New faces and old faces attended this gathering and we were all relieved to finally share in another friday night together.

This month was the beginning of change in a lot of these lives. In all this hustle and bustle of creativity, each artist was going through some sort of development in their work.

Even waiting.

Waiting in and of itself is development. What develops while you wait, for one soon to be architect student, is the growth of what that outcome will have.

Interested to see how these women were dealing with their need to hold in / share / communicate their work or lack thereof , a question was posed.

"As an Artist/Creative, what does it mean to have a safe person to share with? Do you have one?"

Mostly stemmed from my own discoveries and revelation from Julia Camerons' "Walking in this World"

"One of the trickiest issues in a creative life is the issue of private support and encouragement for our creative leaps - no matter how they are received. As artists, we do not need private adulation, but we do need before, during, and after friends, those people who love and accept us no matter what our current creative shape and size. We need friends who understand that a creative success may bring an onslaught of pressures nearly as devastating as a creative failure."

The responses:

"I have a safe few people but it was a journey to discover who is enriching to your life and who isn't. For me, It's more about who is a positive more than a negative."
"Having a safe person to talk to, is as simple as life or life. Death perhaps not in a physical sense, but mentally, emotionally...it allows you to keep moving - When you would otherwise be stuck. Without movement in the creative mind, there can be utter confusion and stagnant waters. Having a safe person continues the ebb and flow of the creative tide."
Having someone to share your ideas and be confident that they will be honest with their opinions.

Our discussion weaved in and out of topics and we agreed that being able to vent when confusion comes while having someone who will give advice to get you back on track is imperative.

It is in the knowing who to go to. You don't need to get all from one person. In having 'safe people' to go through the process of being a creative, is taking the time to know yourself and know who you need to talk to in the moment.

The thing with unsafe people who can say damaging things to our inner artist child, is that they are not being deliberate (for the most part). Most of those lovely people, are simply not equipped or made to be aware or sensitive to the process that we are going through in that moment.

April 2014 'Safe People'