RESULTS, TAKEAWAYS & GOOD WORDS.
Ready to take the next step in unlocking your creative potential? Book a Creative Strategy Session here, my treat.
I’ll just say that there is no one else I know who does this work like she does; backed by an overwhelming history of experience, achievement, and research.
Working with Darla for this year, has been so freeing creatively, instructive mentally and essential physically, making me a more authentic, centered, and confident artist. I was in the studio painting last week in an absolutely different headspace. no critic.It was revolutionary and curious and kind. Now when challenged I don’t doubt my skill or vision, I step back, I question, I problem solve. I allow for learning and experimentation.
Darla helps me question myself. Stay true to myself. She helps me point my energy in alignment with my ideas. I can’t say enough to recommend her to you if you want a surer creative footing for your practice.
Sometimes all we need is to be given the tools, or just a gentle nudge, to enter the process differently. I have always marveled at Darla’s way of looking at, and seeing into and through things. I envy the clarity of that seeing, but also her succinct articulation of what is not seen. As a maker, performer, director, educator, writer and creative coach, Darla brings a broad spectrum of gifts that adds tremendously to any creative process.
Darla’s ability to cultivate and foster a space that is innovative within multifaceted realms of creativity is remarkable. Her ability to authenticate the work radiates and brightens the mind. Her zealous spirit, and tenacity to all aspects, integrative to a rich and mindfully crafted approach is amazing. Beautifully articulated within her work, is her ability to innovate, rejuvenate and expand understanding beyond horizons to the wonderful place of the heart.
“Darla is a tremendous artist, mentor, and coach for anyone looking to unlock their artistic process. It can be incredibly vulnerable to admit feelings of unpreparedness, anxiety, or blockage around one’s creative process, and even more so to seek out assistance in navigating those feelings.
Darla truly meets you where you are, and furthermore generously offers opportunities for unlearning the kinds of negative self-talk and thought patterns that are anathema to creativity. She identified and reframed my mental blocks and fear around ‘play-writing’ and conception of theatrical work, all the while offering a level of compassion, clarity, and curiosity that allowed me to feel safe plumbing my own preconceptions, questions, and inspirations.
Moving through the initial stages of the creative process are often most challenging for me. Darla listened to these challenges and astutely presented an inventory of exercises and creative research to draw out my preconceptions and predictive outcomes that were paralytic to expansion and growth.
We began with the identification of several essential thematic/inspirational/contextual touchstones we could return to as we continued our work together. From there we began building an elemental inventory of ideas and generative stems to populate these thematic containers. Thanks to Darla’s expert guidance, I have cultivated the expansiveness to explore narrative/thematic opportunities without feeling beholden to outcomes or products, and to better trust my own artistic intuition.
Once we began populating our toolkit we moved into a series of exercises drawing specifically on paintings I was working with. In addition to this, Darla continued to provide elements and media of reference that supported in harmony and/or counterpoint the project we were engaging in together. One example of her curation was the introduction of “The Quiet Volume,” a work of Time Etchells, as an example of autoteatro, deeper reading into Italo Calvino through his “Six Memos for the New Millennium”, and the work of Charles Mee.
This was an essential element in keeping the work we were exploring together open and expansive to the potential of what could be “theatre,” “a world,” or “an immersive experience,” as Darla was able to correctly deduce that one of my key barriers was coming to finite conclusions about work that had not yet been given room to grow.
In that time since, I have successfully generated written work, both in my personal life, as well as in collaboration with my theatre company. In those respective processes, using the tools and language Darla provided me, I have built a library of fragments, sketches, poems, and particles that are rife with potential, but more importantly, delighted me to make.
Whether approaching new endeavors or delving deeper into one’s processes, Darla is truly the psychopomp you want at your side. If you’re feeling locked out of your goals, Darla’s deft mind, precise language, and abundant care will be the pick.
It’s often difficult to seek out guidance when you don’t quite know what you are seeking.
In our first session, I didn’t know what questions to ask or which areas of my craft to explore. Nonetheless, you met me where I was at. You prompted conversation that helped curate new and specific questions. From these questions, we spent time exploring/imagining the broader strokes, as well as penning in the finer details.
Tangibly, we developed actionable inventories for my work in performance, visual work, and research/development, all while working to consolidate the space between my everyday work and the work that I’ve imagined for myself.
The separation between my “creative life” and my “everyday life” was removed. The gap between the artist that I see myself as and the artist that I want to become has diminished.
I am an educator and a maker. This can be thrilling work.
It is also lonely and draining. The highs and lows can decenter me.
When I am with Darla I become a learner and collaborator. Her deep, care-filled listening, and clear, concrete guidance re-connects me to my deepest sources of energy and creativity.
Her wisdom is lived, refined by deliberation and study, and clarified by the joys released and metabolized through action. While my work can feel solitary work, Darla is there as collaborater, companion and witness.
I have collaborated with Darla in the realms of Body Work and mindfulness for more than a decade. Thanks to her guidance and expertise, I have learned foundational practices that have helped me perform at my best as an artist and a professional.
Darla’s intent focus on the individual sets her apart from other practitioners and coaches. From the start, she makes a real investment in understanding you as a unique human — your goals and needs, your concerns, everything about where you are and where you’d like to be.
Drawing from her extensive library of tools and practices, Darla designs programs for you, and only you. There is never a one-size-fits-all approach. As your collaboration progresses, Darla will tune your practice in response to your feedback, experiences and results. Always with kindness, never with judgment. Whatever happens along the way — personally, professionally, artistically — Darla listens and rolls with you. She is far more than a coach. Darla is genuinely a collaborator and partner in achieving your goals.
MORE GOOD WORDS
You gave me a vocabulary and a series of techniques that allowed me to flourish as a student studying devised theater, and produce much deeper work. I found the structures oddly freeing. It gave me something to push against and use to find questions to take my work to a deeper level of specificity.
Working with you literally changed how I work as a human and as an artist. The work was physically and mentally demanding, and the creative atmosphere that was instilled from day one made the environment safe for exploration, and also helped foster an environment of trust between myself and my fellow artists. Looking at creating through a different lens was so helpful, and it taught me to never limit myself when I am creating my own work.
Creative Strategy Session
Grab a 20 minute Zoom call, my treat.
Identifying challenges, solutions and creative action.
Expansion creates it’s own momentum.
DARLA VILLANI NYC
Artist, Creative Coach & Collaborator
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