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My research sits at the intersection of arts in health, critical cultural theory, and creative practice.

How do the stories we tell about creativity determine who gets to use it as a wellbeing resource?

HUMAN-CENTERED CHANGE THROUGH CREATIVITY

Culture shapes capacity.
Let’s build creative cultures

where people thrive.

I help people and organizations restore

what makes them thrive: creativity, connection, and meaning.

build with me →

LEARN WHY →

Creativity is a lifeline, not a luxury.

Free 3-minute diagnostic

Is Your Culture Draining your team?

Before you can rebuild capacity, you need to know where it’s leaking.

In this quick, research-informed snapshot, you’ll see how well your organization supports the conditions that keep people clear, connected, and grounded in purpose. In just a few minutes, you’ll see:

Where you're losing creative, emotional, and relational capacity
Whether you're operating in Survival, Maintenance, or Growth mode
How your current patterns may be fueling burnout or fragmentation
One practical next step to rebuild capacity without adding more work

START THE CULTURE CAPACITY CHECK →

Instant results on-screen

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JANE AWESOME, ACME CO.

A note about the work

I'm currently pursuing an M.A. in Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida. I came to graduate research as an established practitioner — a facilitator, artist, and educator with 30 years of experience in rooms where creativity changes things. Going back to a research university at this stage wasn't about credentialing. It was about building the evidence base for what I'd observed in practice and couldn't yet prove. The question I'm pursuing is the one I want the rest of my career to answer: whether the cultural stories we tell about creativity are harming people, and whether changing them is possible.

the central argument

Productivity culture doesn't just crowd out creative practice. It gets inside people — shaping how they justify, permission, and ultimately abandon creative time. Even among active makers, the language of legitimacy reveals how deeply the cultural narrative has been internalized. My research builds the empirical case that the barrier isn't access. It's the story we've internalized.

the longer question

The research shows creative practice produces measurable benefits. That's established. The harder question is why people don't claim it. And whether we can shift the cultural narrative enough that they do, not because a program taught them to, but because creativity is essential for human thriving.

IDWA is one experiment in that direction. The research is building the case for why the story matters as much as the intervention.

Current investigations

1

Reading as a receptive arts modality

Through In Dialogue with America, I'm exploring whether structured deep reading functions as a receptive arts in health intervention, and what the journal architecture does mechanistically to support that.

2

Protest art, textile practice, and wellbeing

Textile art has always been political, often serving as the only available creative outlet for women navigating constraint. Current independent study work examines protest quilting as a case where legitimacy barriers collapse and what that reveals about creativity under conditions of grief, rage, and cultural upheaval.

3

Productivity culture and creative suppression

Discourse analysis and mixed-methods capstone research examining how internalized narratives about creative legitimacy suppress personal practice, even among people who value creativity deeply.

I'm also currently developing a deployment model for Make-Break-Transform, a creative resilience framework built through 15 years of arts-based practice, as an intervention for the late disaster recovery phase, when outside support has withdrawn and community agency is most at risk.

INTERESTED IN THIS WORK?

I'm always open to conversation with researchers, practitioners, and institutions working at the intersection of arts, health, and culture. Whether you're exploring collaboration, have questions about the research, or want to discuss the ideas, I'd love to talk to you. Please reach out!