Our creative elements are not just about what we make, but why we make, and whom we carry with us as we do.
November 2025, as the veil between worlds thinned, spiritually, seasonally, and creatively, our Teaching Artist Project cohort gathered for a day of deep investigation into what shapes us as artists and educators. This wasn’t just a workshop, it felt like an excavation into our archives, our inner worlds. Together, we mapped the ingredients of our creative lives and traced the artistic ancestries that guide us.
We visited stations across literary, performing, and visual arts, moving between Kyle Dargan’s “Poem Resisting Arrest,” the balletic brilliance of the Nicholas Brothers, and Kehinde Wiley’s bold portraiture. Each station required us to slow down and ask: What forces drive this artist? What crafts shape their expression? What can we learn about our own artistic instincts by paying attention to theirs?
The heart of the day was the Periodic Table of Creative Elements, where we named the forces and craft that animate our work: memory, rhythm, grief, improvisation, community, breath, to name a few that come to mind. To see everyone’s elements collected on a communal wall was to witness a living ecosystem of artistry. Our individual creative DNA suddenly felt connected, interdependent.
In the afternoon, we turned toward Creative Ancestors & Lifelines, those mentors, writers, dancers, filmmakers, teachers, and quiet presences who made us possible. Building personal mentor trees encouraged us to recognize that our artistry is not solitary; it is inherited, nourished, and carried. I especially remember honoring each other’s creative ancestors in small groups, learning more about what shapes the people in our community. Some of us shared names on the wall of one of our ancestors, and I felt extremely moved to write down my mother’s name. She was an accountant, but poetic, wise, and a force beyond her circumstances.
We closed by creating art, in communication with, in tribute to, and in honor of some of the ancestors we thought of that day. I still remember a few collages on the table, how moved I was and how connected we all felt, roaming around the space, learning and exploring each other’s ancestors. By the end of the workshop, it was clear: our creative elements are not just about what we make, but why we make it, and whom we carry with us as we do.
Post by Noor Tannir, Teaching Artist Project Trainee 2025-2026
