Creative Curriculum: Vol. 02
How to become disgustingly creative with homework assignments + community.
Welcome back to the creative curriculum ~ a fortnightly assignment guide for anyone who wants to nurture their creativity with a little more structure and a whole lotta community. This cohort runs for 8 weeks, you can join at any stage!
Creativity isn’t a talent, it’s a way of thinking. And like any muscle, it needs reps to grow. This curriculum is here to give you that structure, whether you’re someone who makes things every day or someone who’s just getting started.
Each assignment includes:
Source material to feed your thinking
The brief to make something
Homework to go deeper
Plus a little note from me at the start of every edition <3
Subscribe to get these sent directly to your inbox. Join our Discord to connect with the community and we host a fortnightly calls for those who can make it (timing TBD). I’m glad you’re here.
This was inspired by my previous article called “How to become disgustingly creative in 2026’, give it a read if you haven’t already!
Here is a link to week one. Here is a link to join our discord channel!
BONUS!
I will be hosting our first zoom call - I hope you can make it. It will be very chill, very friendly, just a chance to meet each other. Click here to vote on what time works best for you — I'll email all voters + annouce in discord the final time.
We all have so much stuff. We can look at it every day, without actually seeing most of it.
The mug you drink from every morning. The pile of books on your nightstand you’re definitely going to finish (here’s hoping). Your favourite lip balm. The random receipt that should’ve been thrown out three weeks ago but has now earned permanent residency in your handbag.
The objects we surround ourselves with are quietly saying a lot about who we are, how we live and what we care about.
This week, we’re taking note.
Still life has been one of the most enduring traditions in art history. Not because bowls of fruit are inherently interesting, but because still life was never really about the objects themselves. It is a language.
The OG still life painters of the 1600s were essentially building arguments out of objects, usually philosophical statements about life, death, desire and the passage of time.
A half peeled lemon represented the deception of apperances. A skull placed next to an expensive goblet was a reminder that no amount of wealth will save you from death. Wilting flowers hinted that beauty was temporary.
This is also a key creative direction skill, learning to construct meaning through objects.
Let’s get into it.
✷ SOURCE MATERIAL
🔗 Ways of Seeing - John Berger
🔗 Embarrassment is the price you pay for excellence - Florence Given
🔗 A small guide to still life symbols - Daily Art mag
Artists:
A few artists approaching still life and observation in completely different ways.
Pieter Claesz — Dutch Golden Age. Every object is carrying emotional and philosophical weight.
Wolfgang Tillmans — Proof you don’t need precious objects to make something worth looking at.
Laura Letinsky — Photographs the aftermath.
✷ THE BRIEF
Compose one still life.
Choose a surface: your desk, your bedside table, your kitchen counter, the chair that’s become a second wardrobe.
Now, be a creative director about it. Compose the scene. Add things. Remove things. Audition each object. What’s it bringing to the table? (pun intended).
The point isn’t to make it look pretty (although it absolutely can). The point is to make it mean something. Every object in your frame is a choice made by you. You’re building a small argument, in objects.
I’d personally like to see some drawings and paintings. 👀
Then, share it in #Vol-02 on Discord with one sentence about why you chose these objects.
Show your work. I’ll be sharing mine too ~
✷ THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE
The colour inventory.
You’re going on a mission, a colour finding mission. Pick one colour and spend the week noticing it. Maybe you’d prefer to pick one day or even just a one walk.
Write it down, photograph it, collect it however you want. By the end of the challenge you’ll have a mini archive of one single colour across your line of sight.
This isn’t really anything to do with making something, but rather training yoru eye to see. Good creatives do this instinctively. It’s a habit to train yourself to look for inspiration everywhere.
Bonus: share your colour inventory tally in Discord. I want to see how much you find. <3
✷ HOMEWORK
Journal prompts for this week.
✷ What’s something you’re better at now than you were a year ago?
✷ What objects do you own that you’d be devastated to lose?
✷ If a stranger had to guess who you were based only on the objects on your desk right now, what would they think?
✷ What have you created in the last two weeks? If nothing, (1) do this brief, (2) write a goal for what you can practice next week!
Subscribe to get these sent directly to your inbox. Join our Discord to connect with the community and share your work. See you in #Vol-02!
This is the coolest thing ever!!!! Im definitely doing it soon 🤩 Right now I’m putting together a little magazine with pictures I take everyday and just doing that has made my phone photo library so much prettier and intentional and reading this somehow reminded me of that 🩷 thank you for putting this together!!!
Love this so muuuuch!