The Artist’s Way: Power, Shame & Finally Hitting Record

Summary

In this episode of the Art and Artist Podcast, Kyle Ariel Knowles returns to the mic from his newly transformed studio stage to reflect on Week 3: Recovering a Sense of Power from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. He shares raw insights from his morning pages, personal stories of shame and self-doubt, and the emotional rollercoaster of the creative process. With honesty and humor, Kyle opens up about the blocks that keep him from finishing his FKN55 project, the fear that creeps in near completion, and how anger and shame can be transformed into powerful creative fuel.

This episode is a vulnerable and empowering check-in for any artist who is wrestling with their inner critic, creative resistance, or fear of being seen.

Takeaways

• Creative resistance often peaks right before completion.
• Morning pages are a sacred space for honesty, self-loathing, and eventually self-encouragement.
• Anger can be a powerful and loyal guide, revealing betrayal and pointing to action.
• Shame is a controlling device that silences authentic expression.
• Artists must give themselves permission to be seen and to speak freely.
• Finishing a project may trigger old feelings of unworthiness—but completing it is the work.
• Even distractions (like perfecting the studio or being obsessed with pickleball) can signal deeper fears.
• Your 17-year-old self may be a compass for the courage and creativity you need now.
• Artist Dates are hard but necessary—feeding your inner artist takes intention.
• Taking your life into your own hands means there’s no one left to blame—but that’s freedom.

Links

Subscribe to The Art & Artist Newsletter

Transcript

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. This is the Art and Artist podcast. My name is Kyle Ariel Knowles and I am upstairs in the studio. This is the first podcast I've recorded in the new studio. It actually wasn't a new studio, it was always a studio, it was a practice room, but I decided not to have an office anymore, so I moved my computer up here, my desk up here and now I'm sitting in the middle of a stage for a project that I'm working on called FKN55.

It's a project I've been working on for 55 years. No, for two years—I turned 57 last week so it's taking a lot longer than I thought it would take. But I'm here and there's a big gap between week two of my 12 week series in kind of looking at the artist's way and going through week by week of the 12 week course. And I did the first two weeks, they were kind of shotgun. I was always running behind, I was very busy. And then I stopped the podcast because I wanted to take the summer off. I didn't want to have too many big commitments, I wanted to sit and think and just not be busy. And I did that. I did it. And so here I am. And I'm back. You can even see here, FKN55, I wrote on my journal. But I just finished this morning. I mean, it's been crazy because...

Even though I left corporate, I have so many days been getting up at 3:30, 4:35 in the morning, no matter what time I go to bed. And I don't know what it is. I think I still have cortisol running through my veins, if that makes sense, and if that's medically correct. And I just still am filled with a lot of doubt and fear and all those things that the artist way helps you overcome.

Now this is my eighth journal. You can see volume eight on here. This is my eighth journal. And so if my math is correct, let's see 12 weeks per journal. I've done seven journals. So that's 84 weeks of doing the artist way. So I'm coming up on two years at the end of this year of when I started doing morning pages. And that last journal, I will admit that there were three days, maybe four days that I didn't write. There were three days I was on vacation in Sonoma, California for my niece's engagement party. And there was a day in there somewhere that I didn't write for some other reason, I believe.

So there were three or four days I didn't write, but all the other days I did write three pages. And I do them first thing in the morning, usually. Once in a while I will do them later if the day has to start immediately and I don't have time to write first thing in the morning. But the good news or bad news of me getting up so early every day is that the first thing I do—if it's three thirty in the morning or four in the morning, whatever—is I do my morning pages and today was no exception. And I just finished week three of doing my three pages per day of morning pages and this week, week three in the book and also in the artist's way journal, because it follows along with the book is recovering a sense of power.

And this again, this is the—how many times if I've done seven journals or eight journals, I've gone through at least the writing that's in the morning pages. And it always starts with, I know if you can see this or not, but it always starts with kind of a one page intro to the week and of summarizing what's in the book that takes more pages, many more pages. It summarizes kind of what this week is about. And then it has quotes from the book throughout. On each page is a quote from the book to help guide your thinking and things like that.

So today, the three pages I did today kind of represent, I think, the three pages of all my journals, because it's filled with kind of a roller coaster of emotions. It's filled with a lot of self-doubt, a lot of loathing and telling myself that I suck and I know you're supposed to be kind to yourself and the artist way helps you to be kinder to yourself but I think it's easy to fall back into old ways and that's what these pages are for anyway is to get the censor to get the resistance to get the negative self-talk out of the way first thing in the morning so that you can clear your head.

And it always—I end up, you know, I'm doing all this self loathing and telling myself I suck and I haven't kept my commitments to myself. I've done very little art. I am doing a weekly newsletter. Art and artist newsletter on Substack. I am doing my morning pages, so I am writing. I am a writer because of those two things. But my big project, FKN55, I have started and stopped and have spent very little time on all summer. And so it's time to hit the reset button and maybe not the reset button, but the play button and start playing around with this project more.

This is part of what my sorceress, your sorceress, Julia Cameron, wants out of these morning pages is that the fact that you are actually probably making more progress than you think you are and I'm sitting here in the middle of a stage in the studio and my desk is over there and faces this stage and every day since I put this together over the past couple of months I have been staring at the stage and the project is right there in front of me. And I'm finally recording the first podcast in the middle of the stage, which represents something within my project.

Just sitting here looking around—if I move over here, maybe you can see there's kind of a performance space over there, performance space. There is a podcast space right here. And over here, you can't tell. Well, there's an American flag. Sorry, I'm moving away from the mic as I do this. I'm trying to get the camera to follow me. There's an American flag on the wall over there. There's picture of an old church, but there is to my right, sitting here, it would be your left if you were looking at this stage, but there is a lectern. There's a podium. And with a mic on it and a big book that could represent anything, but it's actually my old Riverside Shakespeare book from college 30 years ago, really. I graduated 30 years ago from college, if you can believe it. And next year it'll be 40 years since I graduated high school. So that tells you if you do your math, that took me nine years to get a college degree. I was a late bloomer.

Anyway, I'm rambling because it's five o'clock in the morning. I'm not dressed the way I usually would want to be dressed. And the lighting probably isn't that great, but I just finished my morning pages and I was like, just record the damn thing—record Week three of the artist way for your art and artists podcast and talk about recovering a sense of power. I've said this before: art is messy. At least for me, maybe some people are more organized. Maybe some people are very business like in the way they approach art. But for me, it's emotional. It's kind of hit and miss. And there is a lot of self-loathing and doubt that creeps in. And there is, and I felt this power before, this sense of power and she talks about recovering a sense of power and I just want to read just a couple things out of here.

Key Quotes from Julia Cameron

"We must learn when our art reveals a secret of the human soul, those watching it may try to shame us for making it."

And there is the sense of shame when you're making art. I'm struggling with, even in the newsletter, I used the word bullshit last week and I don't want to be shamed for that. And I want to be able to use those words and I want to say fuck and damn and shit and anything that I need to say that's authentic to me and that would be the real me.

I wanted to put this in here. I will forget the lady's name who I've—she's a DJ, but she talks about art a lot and I followed her on TikTok. I think she's the one who said this. Something to the effect of when you're acting your bravest, that's when you're acting the most authentic. And it really just hit me and I thought back through my corporate career or just in my life and the different times I've tried to be really brave. And I think that that rings so true that when you are acting your bravest, that's when your most authentic, that's when your most authentic self comes out.

But I wanted to just say that, yeah, you know:

"Many blocked people are actually very powerful and creative personalities who have been made to feel guilty about their own strength and gifts."

And I felt this way so many times and to say that at the same time, I'm like, well, I don't know how powerful and creative of a personality I am. And I, you know, I don't want to do a humble brag or to toot my own horn or whatever. But again, even just saying those things is limiting the things that I have accomplished creatively and how powerful I've been at different times in my life. And sometimes that power is scary and scares you.

On Anger

And what she talks about in The Artist's Way in this third week, which was—it's funny because there's so many things I underlined in Recovering a Sense of Power, week three. And she starts off talking about anger and how useful it is. Anger points the way, not just the finger. And I'll just read this last paragraph from her section on anger that Julia says or writes:

"Sloth, apathy and despair are the enemy. Anger is not. Anger is our friend, not a nice friend, not a gentle friend, but a very, very loyal friend. It will always tell us when we have been betrayed. It will always tell us when we have betrayed ourselves. It will always tell us that it is time to act in our own best interests."

And I think this is one—seriously this week of recovering a sense of power. Thinking back to first going through the book and the course, the 12 weeks and doing the morning pages. I remember all the anger that came out, and I think a lot of the morning pages have been based on anger and a lot of times anger being betrayed and a lot of times anger at betraying myself, just like she talks about in here. I don't know if I could say too much or too little. I probably said too little about anger and how useful of a tool it is as an artist and being okay to feel anger and to express that, I guess in constructive ways.

I'm sure that Julia doesn't want us to be angry and I don't know, go on a drug-binged, crazy weekend kind of thing and limit ourselves by addiction or alcohol or I don't know, not doing our art and limiting ourselves and not protecting ourselves and not having empathy for ourselves or treating ourselves well. But expressing that anger through words, through writing, and I think that's what the morning pages are there for. I think for me, they have been a punching bag many times, even if I'm sort of punching myself, but getting that out of the way, because it seems like the first page or two can be filled with a lot of self doubt and self loathing. By the time page three rolls around, then it is kind of a pep rally for myself.

That's the way it's gone for me many days. That by the time I'm two and a half pages, two, two and a half pages in, I'm ready to tell myself, okay, I've gotten that out of the way. I've berated myself. I beat myself up enough and now so what's the action? What am I gonna do today to make it better? What's my rally cry today? And a lot of times I'm ending it by saying go Kyle, you know go do it.

On Shame

Moving on, just some of the other things she talks about in week three is she talks about synchronicity. She talks about shame.

"Shame is a controlling device. Shaming someone is an attempt to prevent the person from behaving in a way that embarrasses us. This is why people shame us. They don't want to be embarrassed themselves."

So I think I've acted throughout my life in ways to avoid any kind of shame when actually the things I want to talk about most are probably would be considered shameful to myself and others would feel that shame too. But I think it's time to get over whatever shame I have, whatever embarrassment I have and just be real about things.

So a few more quotes related to shame. Julia says or writes:

"For the artists who endured childhood shaming over any form of neediness, any type of exploration, any expectation, shame may kick in even without the aid of a shame provoking review."

And I feel like this, I mean, I've starred and underlined this from the book because that was my childhood. I think there were many times, and I think about this, I grew up adopted and with parents that love me and siblings that love me, but I think there were many times where there was a lack of understanding of who I was, just genetically, just from DNA, there was a lack of maybe understanding or connection. I think I was a little more crazy or trying to express myself in ways that my siblings never would. And I think a lot of times I felt shame for exploring some of those things that I was trying to express.

So nothing against my parents or siblings or anything. That's just the way it was. But I'm still all these years later, even with no one telling me. You have permission or you don't have permission to do that. I mean, I have no obligation to any organization or any church or really any family members. My parents have both passed and I am as free as I think I could ever be to express myself, but I still have those voices in my head saying you can't do that, you can't say that, you can't express yourself in those ways.

So turning 57 last week, I kind of made a commitment to myself that I need to live in a way that my 17 year old self would live. So 40 years ago I was starting my senior year and I was 17 and I think 17 was just that magical age where you're not an adult yet and you don't have a lot of responsibilities and you have sort of a freedom that at least in your body and your mind that you don't have once you become an adult and enter the real world. And I kind of want to live with that reckless abandonment that I did at 17 all these years later and express myself more in those ways and not be afraid of really whether I need permission or not to do so.

On Creative Blocks

A couple more quotes and then I'll wrap this up. But:

"To therapists, this surge of sudden disinterest, 'it doesn't matter,' is a routine coping device employed to deny pain and ward off vulnerability."

Again, she's talking about shame. Julia's writing about shame here. Let me just read the whole paragraph and make more sense:

"Many artists begin a piece of work, get well along in it, and then find as they near completion that the work seems mysteriously drained of merit. It's no longer worth the trouble. To therapists, this surge of sudden disinterest, 'it doesn't matter,' is a routine coping device employed to deny pain and ward off vulnerability."

And I can tell you right now, my project FKN55, there are three parts to it and I have a draft of two parts. And then I also have a song that goes along with it. I have the stage that I built here in the studio. And I just have put off finishing a draft of one part of it. So I'm one third away from doing it. And I think a lot of it is this mechanism, this mechanism that happens because of shame, because of childhood trauma, whatever—whatever it was, not childhood trauma, but maybe, well, that could be part of it. If you had childhood trauma, I don't think I did. But I was shamed or afraid of expressing myself because of a few different things that happened to me when I was younger, whether it was an art class where I got a bad grade or whether it was just fear based on you can't do that. You can't do that. You can't be angry. You can't be sad. You can't express yourself that way, even if it was unwritten or just felt. I did experience that.

So anyway, I'm here two plus years after starting this project, FKN55. And this is just ringing so true that many artists begin a piece of work, get well along in it, and then find as they near completion that the work seems mysteriously drained of merit. It's no longer worth the trouble. You know, those saying who's going to even care about this? Who's going to even watch it? Who's going to understand it? It's not that great. I mean, all of those things are part of what I've been going through the past couple of years with these starts and stops of writing and trying to finish this project.

And I think I've distracted myself. A lot of it is distraction. I got way into pickleball this summer. I moved my office up here. I spent a couple of months trying to get everything plugged in just the way I want it. It's still not exactly the way I want it, but it's getting closer. It's very, very close and just avoiding the writing, writing that shitty first draft of the third part of my project, I just haven't done it, and so I need to do it. I just need to sit down and do it.

And that's what the morning pages are for—to talk through these things. And that's what this course is for, this 12-week course, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I can't recommend it enough, or I can. I can definitely recommend it. But I can't say enough good things about it and how it has literally changed my life. I am sitting here right now because of Morning Pages. I'm sitting in the middle of the stage doing this podcast because of Morning Pages. 100% and there are several decisions I made in my life that are the result of doing three pages of longhand long form writing—writing by hand in an artist's way notebook. You could do it in any notebook, but it takes me 30 minutes if I'm really fast if I'm just going straight or it takes 45 minutes to an hour if I'm kind of wandering off thinking about different things and some days that's all I can do.

This past week, I had one of those days where all I could do was recount what I did the day before and what I was going to do that day. And some days I write parts of the newsletter, the art and artist newsletter. You can find it on Substack PYFGO, PyFGO, P-Y-F-G-O, P as in Peter, Y-F as in Frank, G-O as in go, PyFGO.substack.com. You can subscribe or follow me. You can subscribe to the newsletter I send it out every Friday and I'm going to start adding more things and I'm talking about more things related to art and artists.

Getting the book and going through the course and going through these exercises really help. One of my favorite quotes of all time is Erica Jong. Julia puts in week three and the quote is:

"Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing. No one to blame."

Love that quote.

On Growth

She talks about growth. Here's, let me just read a paragraph from the section on growth:

"Very often a week of insights will be followed by a week of sluggishness. The morning pages will seem pointless. They are not. What you are learning to do, writing them even when you are tired and they seem dull, is to rest on the page. This is very important. Marathon runners suggest you log 10 slow miles for every fast one. The same holds true for creativity."

Exercises

One of the exercises is to just fill in the blanks. My favorite childhood toy was, my favorite childhood game was, the best movie I ever saw as a kid was and so forth. Let me go to, there's a few tasks:

• Describe your childhood room. If you wish, you may sketch this room.
• Describe five traits you like in yourself as a child.
• Take a look at your habits. Many of them interfere with your self-nurturing and cause shame.

So these are some of the tasks. And then of course she does a check-in at the end of every week and says how many days this week did you do your morning pages? How was the experience for you? If you skipped a day, why did you skip it? Did you do your artist date this week?

Artist Dates

The artist date, I will just end on this, the artist date is very hard for me to do. It's very hard for me to be, to carve out the time to, for myself, to be selfish and go away for a couple of hours and do something that's going to feed my artist soul. I justify watching TV series mostly or movies as my artist date most of the time. So I think I can get away with that, but I would prefer to go somewhere whether it's to a movie theater to see a movie or figuring out other things that can feed my artist soul.

So anyway, that's this week, recovering a sense of power, week three of The Artist's Way. You've been listening to the art and artists podcast. Please subscribe to my substack if you'd like to follow along documenting my reinvention and my artist's way journey. Thanks for listening.