Cultivating Creativity with Courtney Beglin
Courtney is a Creative Director, Visual Designer, and Multidisciplinary Artist, whose rich tapestry of experience spans over 11+ years in brand design, premium product design, graphic design, and illustration.
While Courtney’s passion for creativity began in her earliest memories of life, embodying a true master of visual storytelling came with her own journey of self-discovery and reclamation of self as “Artist”.
Courtney’s artistic philosophy is grounded in the belief that the environments we create and inhabit profoundly influence our drive, productivity, and overall state of being. To her, nesting is not just an act but an art form, a way to curate a life filled with joy and inspiration drawn from nature and mindfulness. Join us as we delve into Courtney’s colourful world where her passion for art is driven by purpose in weaving a harmonious existence within all things.
Tell us about your journey with Art and being “an Artist”
My journey with art began with my very earliest memories, originating in a vivid lucid dreamscape that bled imperceptibly between waking and sleeping as early as one or two years old. I still have crystal clear memories of dreams from the point of view of my crib, unbound by distinctions between "reality" and the phantasmagoria behind my eyelids. In those days of infinite imagination and childlike delight, I was the writer, director, cinematographer, set designer, and FX artist of endless possibilities in my dreamworld, and blissfully oblivious of any real world impossibilities. These early expressions of imagination manifested in any visual medium I could get my hands on - crayons, magic markers, finger paints in my youngest years, into figurative pen and ink illustrations, painting, sculpture, and eventually digital media as I evolved and refined my process.
That's all to say I've been creating and expressing myself through visual art for as long as I can remember. It wasn't until adolescence and early adulthood, the pressures of college and the career ladder looming, that I began to doubt or repress these artistic drives. I never left these crucial forms of expression behind, rather I began to believe the narrative that they weren't proper, viable, or realistic means of making a life. I tried my best to reel in the wild colours of my soul expression, to make them fit inside the boxes of worthy, externally validated "success," by pursuing a career in design for various established companies. I tried to strike an acceptable balance by pursuing creative fields in corporate settings - exercising visual expression while colouring between the lines, prioritising the stable paycheck over the full fruition of my passion for art.
Ultimately, it was through the discovery of a creative community, the support and encouragement of cherished friends, and a release of expectations - of the "shoulds" I thought society demanded of me - that I finally came home to myself again. As many or most of us experience in our lifetimes, I spent my early youth embracing my true self, my adolescence losing her, and my young adulthood trying desperately to deny and mould her into someone else. But through that innate and primal calling of the creative spark, the muse which refuses to let us lead our quiet proper lives, I reluctantly and then rampantly embarked again on the journey to rediscover and reclaim her.
The chapter I find myself in today is paying it forward. In learning from my own reluctant journey as an artist, and reflecting on the support I received through the embrace of a spiritual sisterhood and creative community, I feel a calling now toward the meaningful work of co-creation.
I began attending women's circles on Sally Mustang's retreats in 2019. Through a series of vivid awakenings, the embrace of unconditional community, and the exploration of modalities of expression gifted by generous mystics, I felt a veil had been lifted to reveal a vibrant truth. I reconnected with the dreamworlds where my own creative callings originated, and learned from so many empowered women what it looked like to hold space, step into my power, and walk the path of my own truth.
Over the course of five years of exploration, and with the generous support of these women I walk with today, I have curated and cultivated an offering to give back to this community that has gifted me such precious gemstones of ritual and reverence. It is my hope and my honour to guide women toward the world-expanding gift of intuitive art expression - of leaving the fear of judgement behind, of embracing play, and of creating with childlike abandon. Of getting messy, experimenting with materials, with colour, with texture - of witnessing ourselves and one another and embracing the visual medium as a means of artistic expression and a modality of healing. I hope to share a remembering that this well of creative expression never left us and is always there within us - waiting to be unleashed, eager to paint colour back into our day-to-day lives.
What practices support you to get into the creative zone?
The two most important practices across all areas of my life, opposing energies that are equally important in different times of need, are stillness and movement. A turning inward and an unleashing outward. A quieting of the mind and an awakening of the body.
In my creative practice, I try to balance the two practices to find a harmony of expression:
Through stillness - meditation, mantras, journaling, and the exploration of imagination - in stillness I coax and cultivate the dream state that inspires endless visions to pour onto paper and canvas before me.
Through movement - yoga to strengthen my mind-body connection, nature walks to witness the inspiration of earth art around me, and ecstatic whirling dervish dances to soul-moving music - in movement I awaken my body as a vessel for creative expression, a channel from intuition to physical manifestation of the imagination.
Left to Right - Kyra Midi in Apricot Blush, Zuri Wrap in Peony, Kyra Midi in Lilac, Sita Maxi in Violet
Why do you feel cultivating creativity is beneficial for women?
I think as women we have a tendency to make ourselves small, to people please, to fit ourselves into a box that is neat and acceptable to those around us. In doing so, we put out our light. We dim our soul shine and tone down the vibrant colour within us - the immense joy and grief and rage and love and the life-giving radiance of the divine potential within us. And in trying to make ourselves nice for others at the expense of our own innate needs, we rob the world of the immense power to create and nourish and enrich it with our gifts.
Stifling our truths causes disharmony - living in contrast with our soul calling manifests malaise, anxiety, depression, and discontent that can even give rise to physical ailments. A crying out of the body to pay attention to what the mind and spirit are starving for. I view cultivating creativity as an essential and sacred practice of self love and self care, and therefore of care for our community. Whether through visual art, song and sound, dance and movement, tending a garden, nesting a space, nourishing through food or nurturing through motherly or sisterly love - we are all creators. Cultivating creativity is a form of tending to ourselves and our souls and thus to those around us, to bring our creative expression to fruition.
We like to think of our handmade designs as wearable art, how do you feel wearing them?
Wearing a Daughters of India dress feels like floating on air - a beam of light and burst of colour that could catch the next wind and fly away like a feather on a breeze. I feel feminine and comfortable and colourful and free, vibrant and soft all at once. An artisanal tool of self expression, choosing the colour and cut and pattern of the day is like picking a paint brush and a palette before a blank canvas. Wearable art indeed, and a gift to the creative spirit - thank you for the art you put into the world to make women feel beautiful and unique and full of creative potential!
