We recently connected with Lilian Wren Kurkinen and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Lilian Wren, so excited to have you with us today, particularly to get your insight on a topic that comes up constantly in the community – overcoming creativity blocks. Any thoughts you can share with us?
PERMISSION and RELEASING PERFECTION
The permission is centered in allowing myself as an artist to not always have the capacity or desire to create. Production does not define my authenticity as an artist. My ability to be creative and appreciate creativity are separate– and while the former can fluctuate, as long as the latter remains forefront it is okay.
There are seasons to everything. A maple tree in the dead of winter looks dead. However, this is the time of year when we tap them because the sweet sweet sap is coursing strongly and invisibly throughout, preparing for the foliage to come. Just because there is no visible energetic output does not mean it is stagnant. We trust that important vital work is happening even when we cannot see it.
It is hard work as artists to constantly create what has never been done before. It is revolutionary.
Of course we need rest.
Put all your art supplies away. Out of sight. Out of expectation.
Often once I allow myself permission to not create, the desire to create returns soon after.
The next step for me is to begin creating again with focus on process, not product.
This looks like single line portraits or to paint in sweeping messy swaths, to rip up a piece and stitch it back together.
**NOTE: Allow your concept of “creative” to expand. Is your creative block truly null, or is it just diverted? I often find my creative brain is working hard- just not where I’m looking. It’s alive and well in making student lesson plans or my journaling, in a 100 piece puzzle or in the mystery of sourdough, used as I go through an emotional growth spurt or take a course.
For example, my creative mind today?
It’s mulling over what to do with the two Italian eggplants in my fridge.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am an artist with a problem: I have far too much I want to do with my life.
I am 23 and I lay in bed at night and think about how it already is all going too fast. I am 23 and people look at my resume and say “this is kind of all over the place…” I am 23 and my “adult” life is just beginning and I’m standing on a stone in the river ford and they are telling me “JUMP TO ANOTHER ONE”
The problem is I don’t know which one.
The solution is my art.
My art is a boat, not a stone.
It is connection and freedom.
Its been the prompt to a heartfelt conversation or the card in which someone writes “I love you.” Its been the way I have made my students cry with laughter and made distracted teens become fascinated with Etruscan history, the means by which I’ve build international friendships and bridges language barriers, learned the inner workings of a single plant cell, and come to know myself as a human.
Its a small thing that serves a larger purpose.
Its that
single
tiny
white
dot
added on Ravens eye that makes people stop and see him as something worthy and grand.
Art is the thing that marries my identities as an empath and activist, revolutionary and historian, global citizen and homemaker, student and educator. It’s the means by which I can float in the current of the river, not merely jump stone-to-stone over it.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
AGILITY, RESILIENCE, and PLAYFULNESS
Believe it or not, but I have grown into these in the years. As a child, I was wound up in frustration and exactness, and my mother had to often pry offending works-in-progress from my hands until I calmed.
I remain AGILE by working on multiple pieces at once, alternating mediums or perspective, and routinely doing freeform abstract drawing. This prevents me from sinking into expectation and allows the piece to evolve organically as opposed to rationally.
I remain RESILIENT by never outright giving up on a piece. We as artists and people are taught to hide the in-progress “ugly stage” so we rarely see it represented in the world around us. We then internalize that the “ugly stage” is non-existent in this things we admire that looks curated and beautiful. But what I have learned is that the ugly stage is inevitable and is never grounds alone to give up. That everytime, my ability to remain resilient throughout that stage is how I get to something amazing.
PLAYFULNESS is what allows me to evolve. When we experiment we grow. Play teaches us how the world works. While many species are genetically programmed in their behavior (often because for that species the risk of experimentation is too great, ie death), we are some of the few species who have the opportunity to learn and grow from play. Pups play wrestle and learn socially acceptable behaviors, human babies drop food from their highchair and learn about gravity, etc, etc. I play by going down rabbit holes of ideas, taking new art classes, doing things with no end goal, engaging with kids whose who entire existence seems defined by imagination and experimentation. Play, play, play. Your whole life.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
My 2025 resolution was to marry.
Marry in the sense of finding ways to meet the many facets of my being. In my art, this means leaning into my identity as an artist AND community member through doing more custom work.
I love working with people who have a vision. Whether it be a seed or ready-to-tap maple tree, I want to work with people in capturing their moments in vibrance.
Custom work I’ve done and would love to do more of include:
Logos
Pet portraiture
Wedding compilation
Scientific illustration
Poster and pamphlet design
No matter who, if you have an idea for a custom piece and my art speaks to you, please reach out! I especially love to work on portraiture, large scale pieces on recycled wood and book illustrations.
Get in Contact!
Instagram @ WrennyPennyStudios
Email @ [email protected]
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