Daring Creatively Is Back: New Format, Real Conversations, Unfiltered

After a long pause, Daring Creatively is back, and it looks a little different.

In this first episode, Sydney-based contemporary artist Korynn Morrison breaks down exactly why the podcast went quiet, what wasn't working, and why the new format is the most aligned, authentic version of this show yet.

The new Daring Creatively: Unfiltered is simple, Korynn picks up the phone, calls an artist friend, drops a surprise topic into the conversation, and hits record. No script. No agenda. Just two creatives talking honestly about the artist's journey.

If you're an artist, maker, or creative soul at any stage of your journey, just starting out, mid-career, or well established this podcast is for you.

Hit follow so you don't miss the first real conversation when it drops.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:30

I really love early mornings. It's my favorite time of the day. I get up. Well, at the moment, it is 4 12 a.m. And this is the time of the morning that I absolutely love because I wake up, I get my coffee, I snuggle up on the lounge and do my journal. And as I was journaling this morning, I just felt called to put the journal down and hit record and fill you in on some exciting news. So this has actually been a really long time coming. And you may have noticed that there has been very few podcast episodes coming out for quite some time. And you may have even noticed that podcast episodes have just miraculously disappeared. Now, there is a story behind that, which is not a funny story, but I am gonna fill you in on it. But before I do, if you are listening to this now, you're probably one of my OGs who has been following my creative journey for quite some time. And the Daring Creatively Podcast has always been somewhat of a personal journal of creative wisdom. And towards the end of last year when I was finishing that big commission, and there was just so much happening in the studio. Firstly, I got forced to put the podcast to the side because I was just so busy. And secondly, I started to get this little bit of resistance coming up that was like it's, you know, I felt like it wasn't hitting in the way that I really intended it to. And I thought, I really need to reconsider what I want to do with the podcast, how I can make it even more authentic still, and how it can be used as a tool to motivate, inspire, but not have it about me all the time. Because I think one of the beautiful parts of this creative life of mine is actually the relationships that I've built over many, many, many years. And one of the things that some of you may know about me is I'm a bit of like an introverted extrovert. So I go through these phases of just needing to be alone in the studio with my work. And then there are other times where I really need that human connection. And so I have this fun balance whereby every now and then I invite people into the studio, I do my BYO art sessions. Of course, I go and attend all the openings and I visit other artist studios and I have coffee dates with people. So really deep down, I'm quite a social creature. And what I started to realize towards the end of last year is the conversations I was having with people, whether it be through just, you know, casual phone calls or more structured one-on-one coaching that I was doing with people, I started to observe that what really lights me up is the little breadcrumbs that get left by each individual person in my life. And in actual fact, it it doesn't matter whether they are creative people who are right at the beginning of their journey, or people who have been in the industry for many, many years, or curators that are dealing with some of the biggest institutions in Sydney. I genuinely can see this thread that carries through every creative individual, and that is just this undercurrent and this yearning that we are just so passionate about turning nothing, turning an idea into something physical that people can respond to, and this yearning that we all have to have our work change people in a way, or have our work change us. And I started to notice that the more of these conversations and little meet and greets I was having with people, the more I was kind of lit up from the outside. And so it forced me to really think about my own personal creative ecosystem. That's what I'm calling it now because I have stopped compartmentalizing my life into like perfectly defined boxes, like my home life, the wife, the wife box, the mum box, the art box, the creative coach box, the the workshop hope. Like I started to realize that all of those little boxes just created unnecessary structure and rigidity. And so what I started to ask myself is how do I remove all of those boxes and just have my life operate as one big creative ecosystem where every aspect feeds another part of my life. And it has been really difficult to figure out how to do that. And yet the more I have sat with it, the more I have started to realize that there is actually nothing that I have to do. It is just the energy behind everything that I bring to the table that needs to shift slightly. And so what I started to do as the commission finished last year, that got hung in its beautiful new home. Then I had some other opportunities that popped up. I've got a whole palette of work downstairs that's about to go off to Canada, um, to Gallery Coa, that I'm really excited about. And then on top of that, I've got some work happening at the moment for the US. So there's there's all of these really exciting things happening. And I started to think about, you know, why is that? Why have all these things just kind of opened up and flooded into my life? And it was because I started removing all those boxes and I started just choosing me and following on every given day what I needed to do for my energy. And some of you listening might might think to yourself, oh wow, what a privilege. And I think, yes, it is, it is a privilege, but it has been a very intentional path of getting my life to organize itself in this way and to keep showing up consistently for the greater vision of what I want this creative ecosystem to look like. And that's not to say that living a creative existence is not difficult. It is so challenging at times. And there are always days where I have to put my own energy aside to support my husband or to help my daughter with something. Like those things do not stop. But I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I started to take the opportunity to really reflect on where my energy was at. And the more that I did that, the more I started to recognize that the connections in my life are really, really important to me. Which brings me to the launch of this new version of the podcast. So towards the end of last year, what happened was my business bank account got hacked. It was very, very stressful. Anyway, what it what happened is it led to this whole thing where money started getting taken out of my account because of a product that I use. It was like this big spam thing. Anyway, actually, maybe I should just break it down for you. It might stop some of some of you from purchasing things online. So basically, I buy this really nice Korean skincare. It's the same skincare I've used for a long time. An ad popped up on Instagram and it was they were having a sale, and I thought, oh, good, I'll get it while it's cheaper. So went on, ordered it. It arrived a week later. Didn't think anything of it. It was the same as what I usually do. It arrived, and the product that I received was really strange looking. I was like, this is different. Maybe they've repackaged it. And so I turned the box over to just double check the ingredients, and sure enough, on the back it said team you. And I was like, oh no. Because I never, ever and would never, ever buy from that horrible company that keeps stealing from artists. Um, so immediately my spidey senses were going off. And I was like, what has happened here? Like, this is the same as what I usually do. And so I got onto like the invoice that they send back, and I clicked on the link to the support to try and contact them to find out what had happened. And sure enough, the website was gone. So it was like they had cloned the website and, you know, tried to get all the money out of people and then sold their own product without people realizing. So I thought, well, this is really annoying. You know, they've gotten$100 and something dollars out of me. I'm not putting this shit on my face. So I put it in the bin, didn't think anything of it, couldn't get the money back, they couldn't find the website, couldn't contact anyone. Anyway, left it, didn't think anything of it. So quite a few weeks later, um, I had a message come through that basically said, There's unusual um activity on your account. And I was like, what? So I logged on, and sure enough, all of this money had been taken out of my account. Like we're talking hundreds of dollars. And so I was straight on to the bank and I explained to them what happened. They put blocks on all my cards, rada rahda, rada. Um anyway, because I couldn't find the website again and there was essentially like no proof as to who these people were, I couldn't get my money back. Anyway, what ended up happening was I ended up closing my whole bank account down. And of course, it's a business bank account. So all of the podcasting stuff and everything was attached to that, all the payments that were coming out. And I didn't realize they were sending me all these emails saying we can't take your money out and all of that, because they were all going to my spam. So by the time I'd realized, all of these podcast episodes, my previous ones, had been deleted. And I was like, well, that's really annoying. I mean, I could always upload them again. Um, but then I thought to myself, no, maybe this is an opportunity to actually action some of the ideas that I've had for so long. So let me tell you about this fun new strategy I am using for the podcast. So one thing that I have always done in the studio when I'm creating some of that human connection is I just pick up the phone and I call a creative friend. And inevitably, what happens every time I have one of these beautiful phone calls with all the wonderful people around me, all of these little gems kind of drop out, and these little downloads happen. And these conversations just flow so effortlessly, and I get so much out of them. And I think my friends get so much out of them, and we're just backwards and forwards having this beautiful conversation about where we're at in our creative life. Sometimes we're whinging, sometimes we're crying, sometimes it's one of us needing a bit of a pep talk. But every time I get off the phone, I think, God, that was good. God, that lit me up from the inside out. I should do that more often. So I'm absolutely kicking myself that I haven't had this idea earlier. And I do want to give a bit of a shout out to Julie Battisti from the Creative Kind podcast, who it was actually a conversation that I had with her in the studio, one of these conversations that ended up going for about two hours. And it was quite a few months back, and we just talked about all things creativity and motherhood. And it was kind of that phone call that, you know, dropped this first little nudge of a breadcrumb for this idea. And it was nothing that she said or anything like that. It was just the feeling that I got when I left that phone call. And I thought, hmm, there's something in that. Anyway, months down the track, I actually called her um just yesterday as my final sounding board for this idea. And we had a bit of a chat yesterday, and I wanted to test the technology with an international line as well. So essentially, what I am going to do moving forwards is I am going to do just that. Whether I'm in the studio or on the go or waiting to pick Harlan up, I am just going to pick the phone up and I am going to give an artist friend a call and we're going to have a chat. Every now and then, what I'm going to do is I'll throw out like a surprise topic, but nothing is going to be scripted, planned, preempted. It is going to be authentic conversations right at the spur of the moment. And of course, all the artists are going to know when I'm going to call. So I know that there will be some semblance of a barrier to breakthrough. But I'm hoping with all of these beautiful people that I have in my life that you begin to understand that it actually doesn't matter at what stage you are creatively, whether you just have this innate need to pick up a brush again and you haven't done it in 30 years, or whether you are someone who has been exhibiting all over the world. I feel like these genuine conversations are going to do something. They're going to plant some little spark or breadcrumb for you that you need to hear on any given day. And this is about taking creativity off a pedestal. But what I hope is that sometimes when I speak to people, like I think we have to be really careful about placing other artists up on these real high pedestals. Because really, when it comes down to it, we are all just people. We are all having our own creative struggles. We are all suffering, not always suffering, but we are all going through just life stuff. And sometimes I think the chaos of it all just makes it that little bit more relatable. So it's my hope that in these conversations, and especially the ones that I have currently already recorded, there is a bit of chaos. It isn't structured. Sometimes there are kids in the background that are asking for their parents to make food. Sometimes it's a thing where people need to jump off the phone because they got to go pick their kid up. Sometimes there's a paintbrush that gets put in a cup of coffee. We've all done that before. But it is the chaos and the authenticity that I feel is going to make this next phase of the podcast more relatable than it has ever been. So I could not be more excited to hit go on this first little introduction episode. I literally have phone calls lined up for probably the next three weeks. And I am coming about it from this place where every single person that I've contacted, they are all people that I've had like these spur-of-the-moment conversations with, or I've met in passing, or at an art prize, or we've just been kind of Instagram buddies, or people that I want to collaborate with. And so some of the interviews that I've got lined up are literally going to be me getting to know people on the fly. And I'm excited about that. Some of the interviews I've got lined up are with friendships that I've been nurturing for years. And I even have this quirky idea that I'm going to, like the next time I have an idea that I need to get someone to be a bit of a sounding board at the gallery about. I even reckon I'm going to record those phone calls too. I haven't taken that up with them yet. But let's see. Um, so there are lots of big things to come. The studio is busy, life is fun. My daughter turns seven at the end of this week. I absolutely cannot believe that. Um so whilst I am here recording this, I am literally looking at my lounge room floor at all the lollybags that I have to pack today. So um, life never stops. But I'm so grateful that you're all still here. And um help me spread the word. And if you are one of those creatives who has been watching this journey, has been a bit scared to reach out, just send me a DM on Instagram. Um, I love to have a chat. And maybe it'll be you that I call next. So um, yeah, onward and upward. Time to pick up the phone. This is gonna be fun. Welcome aboard, guys. Stay tuned for more new episodes are gonna drop. Um, whenever the phone calls happen. But I must admit, I already have some recorded and I'm so excited about them. So stay tuned.