living artfully
curiosity > convention
For most of my life I’ve been drawn to the edges, where structure begins to fray and something more interesting and more alive starts to emerge. As a creative I’ve often felt allergic to convention, not because all structure is bad, but because so much of what we’re handed about success, identity, relationships, and even art itself is shaped by systems that reward sameness and penalize exploration.
Lately I’ve been thinking of creativity as a kind of queerness—not necessarily in the sense of gender or sexuality, though that may be part of the inquiry—but as a lens, a way of engaging with the world relationally, sensually, and curiously. A queer lens invites us to question what we’ve inherited. It asks who taught me this was the only way and what happens if I choose to write a new script.
This more expansive way of being in the world feels spacious, vibrant, and awake. It invites reimagination of love, identity, success, and creative worth. What if we challenged the conventions that label it wrong to love more than one person? What if we saw that humans are wired for deep, multilayered forms of connection and that love and care are not finite resources?
What if we brought the same curiosity to our work and creative expression? What might we uncover if we released ourselves from one-size-fits-all molds? In learning to love and accept ourselves more fully, could we open the door to loving and accepting others as they are? What kind of art would emerge, what kinds of communities would form, what possibilities of mutual care and creative collaboration might arise?
If we are brave enough to ask these questions about love, art, power, and presence could that curiosity begin to unravel systems built on fear, dominance, and false scarcity?
Living artfully means choosing curiosity over convention. It means welcoming uncertainty as part of the process and allowing our questions rather than our categories to guide us. What if we approached love, sex, art, and identity with the same reverence we give to our creative work? What if we stopped defining ourselves and instead continued discovering who we are again and again through our relationships and creative impulses?
Living artfully means resisting easy answers. It is about moving toward what feels true even when it does not fit neatly into a box. It reduces emphasis on fixed identity and invites us to cultivate the capacity to stay present, listen deeply, and shape a life that feels aligned with who we are and how we evolve.
What if our inner world—our desires, discomforts, longings, and emotional truths, held the clues we have been seeking all along? What if exploring our own complexity unlocks empathy and compassion for others? What becomes possible when we make space for honest conversation, courageous inquiry, and real connection?
Perhaps through this ongoing practice of self-discovery and creative expression we come to see that we were the ones placing obstacles in our own path. That the frameworks of our conditioning, the stories we cling to, and the instinct to hide from our true feelings and desires are the dragons we are here to slay. Maybe the real art lies in learning how to stay with ourselves, with each other, and with the mystery of becoming.
© Alana Foy 2025
