The Artist Cocoon

The Inner Artist Sanctuary is a creative membership space for self-discovery, reflection, and artistic exploration through Intuitive Neuro Art™, journaling, seasonal themes, and embodied practices. In this article, I started reflecting on the first 6 months phase, the Artist Cocoon. I explore why I created a slower, more spacious way to support creativity - one that allows room for experimentation, imperfection, personal rhythm, and creative freedom.

Why I wanted to build a different kind of creative space

Over the past 6 months I have been leading, exploring, playing in a creative container that I call the Inner Artist Sanctuary - this post is the beginning of a reflection about this space, its evolution, and what my intention is for the future of this space.

When I first imagined the Inner Artist Sanctuary, I knew I did not want to create just another course.

I have created many classes and programs over the past years, and I love guiding people through a focused creative journey. But I was becoming increasingly curious about something slower, deeper, and more long-term. Also, I often felt a kind of inner emptiness whenever one of my courses completed and the group of creative people that I brought together scattered again.

What would happen if we had a space we could simply keep returning to?

A space for creativity, reflection, experimentation, and self-discovery that did not have to lead toward a particular result. A space where we did not have to hurry through it.

That was where the image of the Artist Cocoon (the first 6 month phase of this space) came from.

A cocoon holds something while it is becoming.
There is a period when transformation is happening, but the outcome is not yet visible. Something is rearranging itself inside. It cannot be rushed even though we would love to know what comes next.

In my perspective the creative process itself is really never about the output at the end, but all about the journey there, including the pauses, the struggles, the aha moments.

I think many of us need more permission for that.
We are surrounded by encouragement to produce, finish, publish, share, improve, and keep moving.

But what about the things that are still becoming?
What about an image we do not understand yet?
A question we are not ready to answer?
An artistic identity that is still changing?
What if those things do not need to be rushed into clarity?

Maybe instead of rushing to produce and complete our creations, we need to give them more space and time, and the permission to just to sit with it, and listen.

I needed this space for my own evolution

There is a very personal intention underneath the Sanctuary.

First of all, I wanted to find out what kind of ongoing creative space and practice I could realistically fit within my own life. I needed a structure that would help me make time and space for my own creative flow.

With a toddler, a home, work, and all the ordinary things that fill a day, it can be surprisingly difficult to protect time for creativity - even when art is at the center of your life and your work.

I wanted a rhythm that would keep bringing me back to myself and my art. A reason to keep creating regularly.

As much as I created this space to share with others, it is also a structure that supports my own evolution - instead of waiting for the perfect stretch of uninterrupted time that rarely comes.

I also realized that what I really needed to move into my own next chapter as a guide, artist, and creator, was a place where I could safely fail.

I wanted a space where I could experiment without needing every idea to be completely formed before I shared it.
I wanted to try new ideas or processes and just see what happened.
I wanted to discover which ideas did not quite work and then change them slowly.
I wanted to allow myself to follow my creative flow and explore what emerged in the moment.

What if I could bring something into the space while it was still developing?
What if I could try it, listen to what happened, adjust it, and let the experience itself become part of the creative process?

In that sense, the Sanctuary became a creative laboratory for me too.

And I was longing for something even more important: creative conversation.

I did not want to build a space where I would simply guide and everyone else would follow the instructions.

I wanted members to bring their own ideas.
Their own interpretations.
Their own artistic adventures beyond the live sessions.
I wanted one person's image to spark something in another person.
I wanted people to say, “This is where the prompt took me,” even when that place was somewhere I could never have predicted.

For me, the intention was never to determine the outcome.
My intention was to start the conversation.

To introduce a question.
To open a door.
To offer a creative invitation.

And then to let the exploration move wherever it needed to move for each of us.

That included me.

The Sanctuary is not only a place where I guide other people through creative processes. It has become a space where I could keep discovering my own.
Where I could get inspired by everyone else's creations.
And where I could participate and share just like everyone else.

A sanctuary for creative imperfection

Through our time together in this space, I realized that by claiming my own imperfection and allowing myself to fail and to be honest about where I am at in my own process, I sincerely and genuinely invited everyone in this space to do the same. We all have full permission to change, to fail, and to truly move with our own creative flow.

This means:

You do not have to make a beautiful drawing.
You do not have to connect with every prompt.
You do not have to complete everything.
You do not have to share your work.
You can try something and decide it is not for you.
You can leave an image unfinished.
You can disappear for a while and come back.

One member said during a recent conversation:

“Everyone is valid. Every place that you're at is valid. It was really important for me to know that other people were struggling too.”

And another member wrote about the space:

"The Inner Artist Sanctuary has allowed me to be creative without expectations or judgments...It's also given me permission to be perfectly imperfect and feel great about that." (Connie)

This is not a place where everything is easy or pretty.
And not a place where we always feel inspired.
Most of all, it is not a place where everyone participates in the same way.

Instead, it is a place where there is enough room to meet what is actually happening for each one of us.

A space between inner and outer worlds

While reflecting on the idea of sanctuary, I found myself thinking about psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott’s concept of potential space — an intermediate area of experience between our inner world and external reality. Winnicott associated this space with play, creativity, imagination, and cultural experience (you can find out more about his work HERE)

I do not see the Sanctuary as a therapeutic space, but I find this image very inspiring. Creative practice often happens in that in-between place: something from inside us meets paper, color, line, movement, words, or materials and becomes visible in a form we can then encounter differently.

That is what I wanted the Sanctuary to offer.
Not answers necessarily.
But a place where something could happen.
A place where we could meet ourselves and our creativity in a different way and over a longer period of time.

And this became especially important with time, when some members missed sessions and began feeling that they had fallen behind.

But the Sanctuary was never intended as a linear curriculum.

There is no Module One that must be completed before Module Two makes sense.
Instead, each month offers another doorway.

You can walk through the current one. You can return to one from three months ago. You can decide that a particular theme is not where your attention needs to go right now.

The materials remain there to meet again later.

The growing Sanctuary library is a collection of creative invitations, of inspirations, and of questions that you can ask yourself - and they may or may not resonate at any given moment.

You do not need to open all of these creative doors.

Sometimes the important question is simply:
Which door is opening for me now?

What the Cocoon began to teach me

When I began this first six-month phase, I did not know exactly what the Sanctuary would become.

That was intentional.

I wanted enough structure to hold us and enough freedom for the space itself to develop. And somewhere along the way, the Inner Artist Sanctuary began to change and evolve.

People shared their own insights and interpretations.
Some questions continued long after the session in which they were introduced.
People skipped things, returned to things, resisted things, shared surprising things.

And I changed too.

I became more trusting of my own creative process.
More willing to experiment and move out of my own comfort zone.

And to me, this is what the cocoon was for. To give something enough time and protection to develop before asking it to become visible.

Now, after six months, I feel that something is slowly feeling ready for more space.

I will explore this in my next articles, so stay with me...

For now, thank you for reading and diving into the Artist Cocoon with me.

I am now preparing for the next 6 months phase of this creative space - I named it "Artist Unfolding" - and I will share a FREE guided art session to open the door.

Join me LIVE on October 10th
Building a Creative Sanctuary Together
FREE guided Intuitive Neuro Art™ with Antje Howard
>>SIGN UP HERE<<

This session is open to anyone - whether you identify as an artist or not.
No art experience or skills required. I will guide the processes step by step and create a space for you to explore, experiment, and meet your creativity in a new way.