Exploring Creativity and Business with Dr. Tressa

Hi Tressa, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Like so many creatives you’ve featured—and the founders of VoyageLA themselves!—my story began in one set of expectations and goals and has landed me in another creative space. I like to start my story when I’m five years old (don’t worry, I’ll fast forward by decades!) because I believe that when we’re children, we’re closest to our true calling. Back then, and throughout my childhood, I used to seclude myself in my room and write poems and stories, compose music and sing, and make collages from old fashion magazines I collected from my grandmother. Fast forward four decades: I pursued a doctorate and academic career in cultural anthropology, partly driven by the wish that I could work anywhere in the world and that people’s arts and expressive culture (dance, music, painting, weaving, etc.) could teach us something about the human spirit and our inter-connectedness. At the time when I was pursuing my studies and conducting ethnographic fieldwork in Indigenous communities around the world, I didn’t always think in these terms.

Fast forward again: After three decades of working as a professor, museum specialist and non-profit founder and leader, I have devoted much of the last decade to peeling back to that five-year-old’s dream of herself. I even uncovered a drawing I made when I was six years old among my mother’s keepsakes that I had simply signed “An Artist.” When I left formal classroom teaching almost ten years ago at the California College of the Arts, I gave up my rent-controlled apartment across from Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and moved to LA to follow the pulse of my true calling as a poet and writer. I was pulled south by the LA Poets & Writers Collective through the teachings of Method Writing guru, Jack Grapes. Even though I had done my doctorate work at UCLA years before, I re-entered LA like one of those cliched young hopefuls stepping off the dank bus into the sunlight and glitter. Studying with Jack over the course of five years, and being part of a sharp and embracing community of writers, brought me back to myself in a way that I needed to re-member as the art of putting oneself back together. It was not the first time I jumped off the proverbial ivory tower, risking the splat. Years before, I had left tenure at a research university in another state to start my creative journey anew in order to move back to California. It’s been said that we don’t always realize our destiny except in retrospect. Looking back, when I left academia, I took a financial hit and lost job “security,” but like many who leave corporate jobs for more creative pursuits, it seemed like what I had to do at the time.

It was during these more recent years since living in SoCal, and the time leading up to and through the pandemic, that I dove more deeply into my spiritual practices (including two lay ordinations in Zen Buddhism, one that I had received ten years earlier, and later, as an Acharya [lay teacher] in another Buddhist tradition.) I even lived in a Buddhist community for a year in the Blue Ridge Mountains! Mostly, I was working unconsciously, though in a directed way, toward linking my spiritual, intellectual and creative pursuits—and this ultimately led me to start my Transformational Creative Coaching programs which I currently teach to creatives around the world. I took multiple and various trainings, both in-person and online, including life coaching training for women, radical responsibility workshops, trauma-informed leadership courses, and ongoing awakening practices and classes. While I consider myself a life-long learner and un-learner, the culmination of these combined teachings, in conjunction with my academic and community work has now had the magical effect of bringing me full circle in my creative life (Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist anyone?).

I am now working on my fourth book (with two already published and one out for review), which is an inquiry in artistic placemaking from the multiple perspectives that have informed my creative work: feminist, globalist, and Indigenous. For this work, I have received two recognitions in the past year: a Judy Chicago Art Education Award and a Mellon Fellowship on Indigenous Digital Knowledge Sharing from the American Philosophical Society. Because I think it’s important to stay vulnerable in our truth-telling, I will say that financial rewards have (so far) eluded this work, and yet, I remain motivated by something greater than myself (I call it Creative Source) that sets the stage, points the way, and so far has not misguided me, even during times I have veered off course or seem to have abandoned myself. I share this because I want to encourage your readers to stay on their creative course and walk humbly with your muse.

Today, I am writing from Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I will be dividing my time between California. I continue to work with clients in California as a creative coach and arts and culture consultant through my Institute for Inter-Cultural Practice. I am working on folding my online program I call The Creative Curriculum into a book. And since teaching in all of its forms is in my blood, I am not surprised to find that after a ten-year hiatus, I will be back in the classroom this year, where I will be teaching cultural theory, methods and practices to students and creatives of all stripes!

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
As I mentioned in my story, while the road has not been paved with gold, it has been a creative journey that I would not trade, despite the pitfalls of economic insecurity. In fact, the creative life is often a kind of “feast or famine” joy ride, strengthening courage, confidence, resilience and purpose—the key is to stay on track with creative intention. My cumulative experiences in the arts—as a curator, writer, organizer—would not have yielded the wealth of experiences and relationships had I just done “one thing.” Taken together, these experiences have given me a 360 perspective on crafting a creative life that continues to inform my writing and teaching, and I think make me a trustworthy mentor. In these ways, my life is rich. Another aspect of being a writer (as with any of the creative art forms) is that the reception to one’s work is not guaranteed. The publishing world is distinct from other kinds of “art world” outlets, and the key remains perseverance, as well as growing a thick skin for rejection, using it as an opportunity to refine, revise and try, try again. I’ve heard it said that we pick ourselves up from where we fall down. In my coaching work, I’ve learned that often times the “breakthrough” lies within the “breakdown.” So it is a continual path of self-discovery.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
I founded the Institute for Inter-Cultural Practice as a way to offer services to artists, writers, communities and organizations. These are the communities of belonging that I serve as an arts and culture consultant (mostly working with communities and non-profit organizations), as well as individuals who need guidance, support and accountability for their creative work. My Transformational-Creative-Coaching programs grew out of this need, especially for creatives who need to start, catalyze or finish creative projects. I help people to identify “saboteurs” and “obstacles” (both internal and external) in order to redirect, transform and focus creative energy and intention on what matters most to them. Because I have worked across creative sectors and artistic genres, I bring a depth and a breadth to the work that I do, informed by decades of practical experience and a willingness to get out of the way so that the results are for the greatest good. While my methods are replicable and measurable, my brand is unique because it reflects the culmination of my own learning as a compassionate guide. I welcome people to contact me to talk about their projects.

What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
I mentioned earlier perseverance as an important aspect of coming to completion with a project–whether it’s revising and resubmitting for publication, creating an outlet for visual art, or helping others to meet their strategic and creative goals. I would caution though that perseverance without heart can easily lead to discouragement and self-doubt. I think self-doubt is linked to self-confidence in an inverse way. By “heart” I lean into the root word for courage, “couer,” and that goes to the main underlying “saboteur” that gets in the way of success: Fear. I personally am not fearless, but I have come to recognize my fears and over time, I welcome them as teachers, even if it can feel uncomfortable or painful at times. What is success without happiness? In Buddhism, it is taught that “dukha” or suffering exists in life and that it can also be transformed for well-being, clarity and equanimity. In conjunction with self-compassion, these are essential qualities that enable success from the standpoint of humanness.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.interculturalpractice.com
• Instagram: TressaBrittin
• Facebook: Transformational Creative Coaching
• Linkedin: Tressa Berman, Ph.D.
• Other: www.transformational-creative-coaching.com