Creative Essentials: How to Care for Your Creativity When Things Falls Apart
Six Week Class
CLASS | Thursdays, Oct. 16-Nov. 20, 2025 from 6:30-8:30pm EST
CREATIVE COWORKING HOURS | Mondays, Oct. 20-Nov. 17 from 1:00- 2:00pm EST
đź“ŤONLINE delivered via ZOOM
Facilitated by J. Faye D'Avanza (I&A Certified)
Registration is through the Inward & Artward School of Creativity, a sister project to Story Parlor.
“We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.”
—Pema Chödron, When Things Fall Apart
What are your creative essentials? These are practices and tools that help you reclaim your power to create and experience joy not only during good times but when things fall apart. When life feels like it’s one crisis after another, and just as you gain some ground, it falls away again, it can leave you feeling exhausted, unsure, and afraid to take the next step.
But creativity is born from chaos, and it asks us to take risks to grow. And being a human is hard, especially when the world is on fire.
If you are feeling overwhelmed by the thought of caring for your creativity (Wait! Another relationship to tend?!) when you are already caring for so much, you might ask why even bother, it’s just my creativity.
Your creativity is your power.
In this 6-week workshop, you will reclaim your power to create and experience joy with essential tools for grounding your nervous system, connecting with your heart, and nourishing your body, mind, and soul in this six-week workshop to support resiliency and growth for creative seekers who are rebuilding after life has fallen apart.
-
The Inward & Artward School of Creativity—a sister project to Story Parlor—launched in the fall of 2025 with the intention of expanding the workshops and classes offered to a broader, virtual community.
The school takes its name from a guiding philosophy: that one must go inward in order to go “artward.” Creativity, in this framework, begins with reflection, personal narrative, and an honest reckoning with the stories we carry—about ourselves, about others, and about the world. I&A helps participants explore those stories, untangle limiting beliefs, and cultivate sustainable practices that foster creative growth. The aim is not to teach a singular technique or discipline, but to provide tools and frameworks that allow individuals to discover their own pathways to expression.
Programming at I&A spans a range of offerings, from short-term workshops to extended creative facilitator trainings. These trainings are particularly impactful, equipping artists, educators, and community leaders with the skills to guide others in creative exploration. Through this work, the school cultivates a new generation of creative leaders committed to fostering inclusive, meaningful, and transformative arts experiences.
Together, Story Parlor and the I&A School of Creativity form a dynamic ecosystem of creativity aimed at dismantling the barriers and silencing that so often accompany early creative experiences, and to invite participants to reclaim creativity as an essential part of how they live. They affirm that creativity is not the province of a chosen few, but the birthright of all—a force capable of bridging divides, deepening empathy, and helping us see ourselves and one another more fully.
-
A former public librarian turned creative educator, J. Faye D’Avanza is known for helping people recover and heal from creative burnout by tapping into what brings them joy through her unique blend of group facilitation, individual advising, and content creation for a growing audience of emerging and [re]emerging artists, authors, creatives, and entrepreneurs.
Her approach is rooted in bottom-up connection to creativity (body to mind) and an exploration in the interdependence that can be found when self-care is balanced with community care.
With over 20 years experience working in public libraries, managing communications and events for a woman-owned bookstore, and coaching artists and creative-based businesses through recovery after Hurricane Helene with the nonprofit Mountain BizWorks, Faye is skilled in curating and making accessible community resources, facilitating a holistic approach to the creative process, and engaging others in growing, learning, and connecting through story.
A cultural information professional, Inward & Artward certified creative facilitator, University of Chicago certified book editor, and West Asheville Yoga (RYT-200) yoga teacher-in-training, she lives among the artists, tourists, trees, and mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, and can often be found drinking a matcha latte and writing in the margins of her books.
Learn more about Faye and how to care for your creativity at jfayedavanza.com.