Artists have a special talent for making life harder than it needs to be. They overthink, obsess, and get stuck.
And because creative block hurts, they assume the way out must hurt as well. More struggle, more studying, more polishing.
Ah, the symmetry.
Artists love symmetry, don’t they?
But no.
A complicated problem doesn’t need a complicated solution. Sometimes, it needs the exact opposite.
The block isn’t the problem.
The block is a sign.
The problem is what you do to fight it.
Yep—what you think will save you is actually keeping you trapped.
That’s why it won’t go away. Because you keep feeding it.
If what you’re doing isn’t working and you just keep pushing and pushing, harder and harder, you’re making it worse.
You’re stuck in a loop where the more you try to move forward, the deeper you sink.
Trying to study your way out of creative block is like insisting on putting out a fire with gasoline.
And when someone points it out, instead of changing course, you double down:
“No, no, you don’t get it—my gasoline is different.”
Sure.
But… here we are. Haha.
The problem isn’t that you don’t know enough. It’s that you’re trying to control everything.
And the more you try to control, the more rigid you become. The more obsessive, the more meticulous, the more stuck.
Control is a slow poison.
And the more stuck you are, the less you create.
You think you need more knowledge.
I get it. That trap is easy to fall into.
But what you really need is to learn how to use what you already have.
That’s the bucket of water that puts out the fire.
And breaking through doesn’t happen by cramming more information into your brain. It happens when something—or someone—forces you to see things differently.
Because when you see differently, you do differently. And when you do differently, everything shifts.
Reality moves when your perception does.
Things that once weighed you down suddenly don’t matter.
Things you used to ignore become crucial.
That’s what we do on the island.
We don’t give you more theory.
We pull you out of your head and drop you straight into the experience.
And there—without warning—we push you to observe from angles you never considered.
A crack.
A door.
We don’t do it with words.
You’re going to FEEL it.
Lessons fade. Experiences don’t.
The method? Not your concern.
Really, it’s not.
Because if you knew, you’d show up prepared.
With your armor on.
With your need to prove yourself.
With your overly defined goal.
With your competitive streak.
With that deep hunger to be validated, praised, admired.
And that’s it, right?
That’s exactly what’s keeping you blocked.
So no, we’re not giving you any of that.
We don’t give you more walls to climb.
We’re giving you something better:
We’re stripping away all your certainties.
And putting a whole new set of possibilities right in front of you.
The next edition is October 2025.
Seven mentors with perspectives so radically different, they’ll shatter the way you see art: JAW Cooper, Vincent Desiderio, Ruprecht von Kaufmann, Laurie Lipton, Edward Povey, Tania Rivilis, and Yasha Young.
When something cracks your frame of reference, the shift has already begun:
P.S. — Change doesn’t happen because you understand it. It happens because you live it. And that slippery slope starts right up there with that link 👆
Something we said lit a spark?
Good. Follow it.
Each week, one sharp idea to cut through the noise.
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Including the one that’s helped hundreds “Overcoming Impostor Syndrome.”