What counts as creative practice? In this episode, Dra. Leslie C. Sotomayor II and Dr. Katy Ballard open up a spacious conversation about creativity, transformation, and the many ways we come into being through what we make, tend, share, and imagine.
Creativity is often treated as something reserved for artists, experts, performers, or people with the right training. But this conversation pushes back on that narrow view. Creative practice is not limited to visual art, gallery walls, polished outcomes, or public recognition. It can live in the body, in the kitchen, in a classroom, in a garden, in a story, in a song, in a neighborhood space, in a mother’s radical care, or in the quiet act of listening deeply to what is becoming. The episode draws from Gloria Anzaldúa’s idea that creative acts extend far beyond what is usually named as art. Creativity can be a way of surviving, healing, making meaning, and crossing borders. It can help us live in nepantla, the in-between spaces where old ways no longer fit and new possibilities have not fully arrived. Dra. Sotomayor and Dr. Ballard reflect on the messages that often interrupt creative practice. Many people stop creating because they were told they were not artistic, not talented, not disciplined, or not good enough. Some were taught to stay inside the lines, to produce perfect results, or to wait for permission before making anything. These messages can disconnect us from creative parts of ourselves that are essential to our growth, our joy, and our liberation.
This episode offers another way to understand creativity. Creative practice can be a feminist practice. It can be a decolonial practice. It can be a practice of care, femtorship, community, and self-creation. It can help us ask better questions, listen more fully, and become more honest with ourselves and each other. Creativity belongs to everyone. You do not need a degree, a gallery show, an audience, a perfect result, or anyone’s permission to create. The act itself can be meaningful. The practice itself can transform us.
Creativity as a practice of wondering, listening, and becoming
Creative acts as more than traditional visual art. Gloria Anzaldúa’s influence on understanding creativity, borders, and transformation. Nepantla as an in-between space where creativity can emerge. Feminism, decolonial thought, care, femtorship, and community as creative practices. Creativity as embodied survival, healing, meaning-making, and self-creation. Everyday creative practices, including writing, dancing, music, performance, cooking, gardening, storytelling, teaching, curating, and community building. Why people stop creating after being told they are not artistic or should stay inside the lines. Reclaiming creativity without needing permission, credentials, an audience, or a perfect outcome. Creative practice as a way to imagine new possibilities and build more life-giving worlds.
Reflection Questions: What messages did you receive about creativity when you were growing up? When did you first start to believe you were, or were not, creative? What creative practices already exist in your everyday life, even if you have not named them that way? Where are you living in an in-between space right now? What form of creative practice helps you listen to yourself more deeply? What would you make, try, tend, write, move, or share if you did not need permission? How might creativity become part of your care practice, community practice, or healing practice? Who has femtored, encouraged, witnessed, or made space for your becoming?
Resources and References Mentioned: Gloria Anzaldúa and her expansive understanding of creative acts Nepantla, the in-between space of transition, tension, and transformation Feminist and decolonial approaches to creativity, care, and community. Anzaldúa, G. (2015). Light in the Dark/Luz en lo oscuro (p. 9). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Creative practices such as writing, dancing, music, performance, cooking, gardening, storytelling, teaching, curating, and community building.García, C. S., & Sotomayor II, L. C. (2025). Art borderlands in theory, practice, and teaching. Taylor & Francis.
Everyday examples of creative community care, such as neighborhood art spaces, radical mothering, or madres radicales, where relevant to lived experience.
Call to Action: Listen to the episode, then choose one small creative act that does not require permission. Write a few lines. Move your body. Cook something with intention. Tell a story. Tend a plant. Make space for someone else’s voice. Begin where you are. If this conversation resonates, share the episode with someone who needs to remember that creativity belongs to them too.
Special thanks to Daniela Cervantes for editing our episodes.
Photo Credit: Daniela Cervantes & Gabriel Chaile.
Podcast cover design by: Sterling Zoebisch
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