Creative Hump Monthly Newsletter May 2025

✨ 1. Peer Support Corner: Preventing Compassion Fatigue

🎨 2. Creative Tools & Art-Making Updates

Handwritten version transcribed for your inbox

Hello (meow)🐔 From the Desk of Sandra, Chicken, (& Sophie R.I.P.)

It’s a new day, and I thought it might be fun to handwrite this month’s newsletter. Don’t worry — it’s transcribed for those who can’t read my chicken scratch. Speaking of Chicken, those of you who know me may know that my cat, Sophie recently passed. (Chicken is the other cat still with us but you wouldn’t know it because she stays hidden to newcomers.)

On the advice of a holistic therapist, I’ve been trying Ignatia Amara, which seems to aid with grieving. It’s an affordable alternative to antidepressants. While I’ve only tried it a few times so far, I think it’s been helping me in addition to my usual psychiatric medications. Regular activities like going out with friends and even light self-care like writing this letter help me stay present. My boyfriend wants to help me take a “Mommy and me” style picture of Chicken, as he is her official “cat daddy”. This has proven difficult, but we’ll keep trying.

📚 What I’m Reading 

Lately, I’ve been diving into:

• “Long Division” by Kiese Laymon
  This young adult fiction takes a deep dive into “woke” culture including a description of something like a spelling bee, but is instead called “National ‘Can you use that word in a sentence?’ Contest”.

• “Anti-Oedipus” by Deleuze & Guattari
  This tough but fascinating part political-science part philosophy book reads like sci-fi with a lot of vulgarities including funny visual ones. I recommend using cliff notes if it gets too esoterically heady with its capitalism and schizophrenia.

• “Transcending Trauma” by Frank Anderson
  A therapy primer on PTSD recovery that helps us understand our parts and how to reintegrate ourselves with curiosity with internal family systems (IFS). I’m listening to it with a loan from Hoopla, which helps me get through it without worrying about fines or finishing. podcast interview with author

• “Follow this Thread” by Henry Elliot
  A Maze book that, like “Long Division” forces you to physically turn the book in multiple directions in order to understand its complexities. This book is artfully written but is also technical and historical. npr article 

✨ Peer Support Corner: Preventing Compassion Fatigue

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to support others while also honoring our own boundaries. When we lose a peer or someone close, grief can stir up compassion fatigue — especially for Peer Specialists.

When the author, who has almost lost his son, overreacts in Transcending Trauma, his own therapist helps him discover that part of himself that wants to be heard. This idea stayed with me — that our unconscious parts will cause us to feel “extra” when really we need those pieces to feel heard before being able to be helpful at those moments. And we will always need breaks, art, pets, and support systems.

I’ve also been preparing holiday card resources for our September 13 Holiday Cards Crafting Extravaganza. If you're interested in joining or receiving those resources, let me know. I’d love to get your ideas and input with a card-making prep-party.

🎨 Creative Tools & Art-Making Inspiration

I shared an image from Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi for close friends on Mother's Day; she is one of a set of women artists that I’ve been trying to learn more about since the museums and the art history classes of my time have often neglected them. Unfortunately with the current administration, I fear that this will continue to happen with the neglect of DEI programs. I’ve also been searching for ways to support lesser-known artists. I’ll be creating a gallery somewhere online for myself, a “Research Corner” where we spotlight themes or tools from artists we love, and offer downloadable templates, especially for those making work about gender or identity.

I'm also at a crossroads — I'm doing a lot of tech and design work, but trying to slow down and find meaning. I stay in bed sometimes, dreaming of ways to rest without guilt. Self-worth shouldn’t be tied to productivity.

🔒 Creative Boundaries & Digital Paranoia

Let’s be real. Boundaries aren’t just about saying “no” to people — they’re also about saying “no” to systems that feed off of us, including the Ai program that I used to help me rewrite this newsletter.

I’m paranoid, not because I have no reason to be. It’s because the world was made by people who want to track our thoughts even in this “free” world where we’re told we can speak our minds. They want to police our desires in order to enterprise on them — making both us and our ideas a commodity. We are the product and the cow. They are milking us.

When Ai plays genie, asking what you most desire, it might not just be granting your wish — it could be stealing your dream. The carpet won’t fly; it will be stolen.

That’s why I’ve been thinking:
Handwritten drafts. Manual creativity.
Offline first. Online last.
I want to stay original, grounded, and artfully unleaked.

If you’ve ever felt like your digital creativity is being scraped, watched, or drained… you’re not alone. Surveillance is real. The connection between chronic overexposure and mental overload is real. This is the schizophrenogenic atmosphere we live in — systems designed to make us question our sense of safety, ownership, and voice.

So here’s my personal artistic boundary this month:
✨ Create offline often, saving drafts for review for as long as possible.
✨ Share online only what feels right when appropriate.
✨ Stay rooted in my body, my humor, and my idea of true.

We’re not alone in wanting privacy. We’re not disconnected for wanting to unplug. We’re an individuals who deserve the freedom to be ourselves without surveillance by our home.

👀 Closing Thoughts

You might be reading this wondering:

• Do I take enough breaks?

• Does a change in careers slow me down?

• Can grief and creativity coexist without changing my style?
  

Never. You can never take enough breaks. We tend to think of attention deficit issues as a problem, but once you start thinking of it as part of your flow, it could make your work easier. Sometimes your body will tell you before your mind what you need. Listen to your gut.

Maybe. But time is relative, and we’re all here to learn from each other. When you find yourself able to do what you want, able to accept what you are capable of, and how you are doing it, does the amount of time it takes to get there matter?

Yes, if you don’t want your style to change. It’s really up to you.

Let’s stay in community and take care of ourselves — whether that means sketching something small, crocheting a funny toy, unplugging from all the things, reading sci-fi, shaving ice cream, rap-singing or listening to it, learning philosophy, or just watching our cats be weird.