Create Me Free: Where Art Meets Psychology
We are not all "tortured geniuses" and art isn't always therapy - both things can be true but most of where art meets psychology is in the rich magical middle of those two experiences. That middle is what Create Me Free is all about.
Your health impacts your art in myriad ways. This isn’t “good” or “bad” but it can be helpful to understand the relationship. I offer that help.
Through lived experience, hundreds of interviews and years of research, I’ve developed a unique framework for understanding how health (emotional, psychological, physical) impacts creative process, medium, content, productivity, artistic identity and creative business.
I apply this framework to helping you deepen your understanding of this relationship in your own life through personalized services as well as written resources ranging from articles to books.
1) Creative Health Cartography
I practice Creative Health Cartography: mapping the landscape of how your health impacts your creativity.
Through archive review (exploring your existing written work) or guided interview, I identify patterns across six domains where health shapes creative life. You receive a personalized Creative Health Map: a written guide showing where you are now, what’s flourishing, what’s blocked, and paths forward.
2) Creative Health Navigation
These are weekly, biweekly or monthly one hour video phone calls (or voice only if preferred) to work directly with you in processing your relationship with the intersection of art and health.
Perfect for ongoing support after receiving your Creative Health Map, or for artists who want guided exploration without a formal assessment.
3) And the Create Me Free Substack
The Create Me Free Substack provides written explorations of all of the different aspects of how art meets health including in my own life, the lives of contemporary artists, art history, and across disciplines. I provide insights, exercises, ideas, narratives and myriad ways of looking at this complex relationship.
Framework breakdowns examining how health influences creative process, productivity, medium choice, content, artistic identity, and creative business
Interview features with contemporary artists sharing their real experiences navigating health and creativity
Personal narratives from my own journey as a creative living with persistent depression in San Francisco
Research insights that challenge both the "tortured artist" myth and the "art is always healing" oversimplification
Practical tools and exercises for understanding your own art-health intersection
Community conversations about the nuanced realities of creative life
My Approach and Philosophy
I honor the therapeutic benefits of creativity while holding space for the shadow side of how mental health symptoms can impact creative process, content, medium, productivity, artistic identity, and creative businesses.
This work celebrates all types of creativity and people of all psychologies, recognizing that our individual psychology deeply intersects with our communities and culture.
When I use the term "mental health," I sometimes mean diagnosed conditions with specific symptoms, but just as often I mean "how the challenges of life are affecting our thoughts and experiences." We all have mental health, and we're all creative beings navigating this complex relationship.
Who This Is For
You're in the right place if you're an artist, writer, maker, crafter, musician, performer, creative who:
Has ever wondered "Am I broken or is this just how creativity works for me?"
Notices your anxiety, depression, or other symptoms showing up in your art (or stopping it entirely)
Is tired of productivity advice that assumes everyone's brain works the same way
Wants honest conversations about the messy reality of making art with mental health challenges
Has felt like you're the only artist struggling with stuff everyone else seems to handle easily
Is curious about the parts of creativity that Instagram posts don't show
Craves permission to work at your own pace instead of forcing yourself through creative blocks
Wants to understand your patterns instead of just pushing through them and hoping for the best
About Me
Hi, I'm Kathryn Vercillo, a writer-artist-researcher who deeply explores the complex relationship between art and health.
Writer-artist-researcher (human being) working from lived experience.
Expert in crochet-as-therapy. Author of Crochet Saved My Life, Hook to Heal.
I’ve also authored a bunch of other books, some I’m proud of and some less so.
I also speak on panels, write grants, lead creativity workshops, create visual art and more.
I hold a Masters degree in Psychology and have studied Visual and Critical Studies at the Masters level.
In the past I’ve done social work, teaching, trophy-building, photography, worked at anime conventions, did the coffeehouse thing and basically lived a life.
I live in San Francisco, which I deeply love, and have two dogs and two siblings, all of which I also deeply love.
I practice artistic tithing, giving a minimum of 10% of all earned income directly back to other artists, writers, makers, and creators because I believe deeply in supporting our creative community.
Why I Do This Work
There has long been widespread agreement among artists, culture makers, psychologists and other professionals that there is a relationship between art and mental health. Despite this, the way that this relationship has been studied is both limited and limiting.
Art therapy programs look almost solely at how art can provide catharsis, emphasizing the benefits of art without considering a more nuanced shadow side to the relationship. Art and culture, on the other hand, magnify a perceived negative relationship best exemplified by the tired trope of the “mad genius” or “crazy artist.”
Having spent nearly two decades researching this relationship, I find that the truth is much more complex; art can be highly therapeutic for many people but the symptoms of mental health conditions often negatively impact the creative process, medium, content, productivity, identity and business of artists. And yet, most persist in their creativity in spite of this.
If we can dig deeper into understanding this shadow side of the relationship between art and mental health, without hyperbolizing it into some story about “well artists are crazy,” then we can perhaps figure out common problems in the relationship and therefore identify solutions. This has the potential to improve holistic wellness (mental, physical, financial, relational) for artists working across diverse mediums.
What It Means When You Pay to Support This Work
I believe in moving away from a model where artists and writers are paid per item that they produce. It’s a system that has created unsustainable machine-like productivity requirements for creatives who often need time, space, energy to dream and daydream and soak in inspiration and let ideas marinate and revise work. I want to change this.
And I work towards that change in a deep way, through this work and research, through support of programs like basic income for artists and healthcare for creatives. And I hope it changes on a deep systemic level. But it’s also important to consider what we can do right now. Where we put our money reflects our values and priorities. What you’re buying when you commit to an annual subscription to Create Me Free is not a “product” … it’s a contribution to something you value.
💝 SUPPORT THIS WORK
This is a one-person operation that works because you support it. Our expenses reflect our values, and writers should be paid for their work. You can:
What Next? Check out the Table of Contents to find the material of interest to you.
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