Creativity Is More Than an Extracurricular
Long before children learn to worry about whether they are “good” at art, many of them create instinctively.
They draw pictures, build imaginary worlds, make up stories, sing songs, dance around rooms, construct things out of whatever they can find, play pretend, decorate, experiment, and turn ordinary objects into something entirely different.
Creativity is one of the ways young people explore both the world around them and the person they are becoming.
And its value reaches far beyond creating something beautiful.
Creative experiences can give young people opportunities to express themselves, experiment without needing all the answers, develop confidence, solve problems, connect with others, explore their identities, and discover interests they may not have encountered otherwise.
Sometimes art gives someone a way to communicate something that is difficult to explain in ordinary conversation.
Sometimes it creates friendships. Sometimes it provides a much-needed place to belong.
A child also doesn't have to dream of becoming a professional artist for those experiences to matter.
Creativity can be valuable simply because creating is valuable.
Yet access to creative opportunities isn't equal.
A young person may be deeply curious about painting, music, theater, photography, writing, ceramics, fashion, dance, woodworking, or another creative field and still have few opportunities to explore it.
Classes and supplies cost money.
Transportation can be a barrier.
Schools don't all have the same arts resources.
Programs aren't always physically, financially, emotionally, or neurodivergently accessible.
And sometimes young people simply don't know what possibilities exist because nobody has introduced them yet.
That is part of what makes community arts organizations so important.
Across St. Louis, different nonprofits and creative groups are working on different pieces of that puzzle. Some bring artists directly into schools.
Some help remove transportation and financial barriers.
Some create affirming spaces where young people can find community.
Others provide mentorship, paid artistic opportunities, hands-on making, storytelling, leadership, or room to experiment with creative practices they have never tried before.
They don't all serve the same young people or approach creativity in the same way—and that is precisely what makes looking at them together worthwhile.
This Creative Spotlight explores several St. Louis organizations helping young people create, connect, learn, express themselves, and belong.
It isn't meant to be an exhaustive directory of every youth art opportunity in the region.
Instead, it is a look at some of the different ways a community can make space for young people's creativity—and why those spaces matter.
Because creativity isn't something we should reserve for the children who already think of themselves as artists.
Every young person deserves opportunities to discover what might happen when they are given room to create.
CommUNITY Arts STL: Making Creative Opportunities Accessible
Sometimes the barrier between a young person and an artistic opportunity isn't a lack of interest.
It's simply getting there.
A child may want to take a dance class, participate in an arts program, or attend a creative community event, but transportation and cost can quietly put those experiences out of reach. CommUNITY Arts STL approaches youth arts access with those practical realities in mind.
CommUNITY Arts STL is a St. Louis nonprofit whose mission is to "cultivate community at the intersection of public health and art to inspire intentional and creative living."
Rather than treating creativity as something separate from well-being, the organization connects artistic experiences with its larger vision of supporting a healthy community, healthy minds, and healthy bodies.
Executive Director Paige Walden shared with me that CommUNITY Arts STL currently serves young people through both in-school and after-school programming for ages 6–18, alongside the organization's annual artistic productions.
Removing More Than One Barrier
One of the organization's most interesting programs is the CommUNITY Arts Bus (CAB).
CAB helps young people access after-school arts education by providing transportation and tuition scholarships.
Volunteer CABbie drivers and mentors provide rides to arts programming and CommUNITY Arts STL events.
That distinction matters.
Making a program affordable doesn't necessarily make it accessible if a young person still has no reliable way to reach it.
Likewise, having transportation doesn't solve the problem if the class itself is financially out of reach.
Sometimes meaningful accessibility requires asking not only: “Does this opportunity exist?”
But also: “Can the people we're trying to serve realistically participate in it?”
By addressing both transportation and tuition, CommUNITY Arts STL helps bridge the distance between an available opportunity and a genuinely accessible one.
Bringing Creativity Into the School Day
CommUNITY Arts STL also approaches access from another direction: instead of only helping young people travel to creative opportunities, it brings arts experiences into schools.
Its Arts & Literacy programming connects teaching artists with elementary schools and combines storytelling and literacy learning with visual arts, performing arts, and creative writing.
This reflects something easily lost when arts education is treated as separate from academics: creativity and learning do not have to compete with one another.
A story can become a performance.
A concept can become an image.
Writing can become another form of artistic expression.
Movement, storytelling, visual creation, and imagination can give young people different ways to engage with what they are learning.
And different ways of learning matter because children don't all understand, process, communicate, or express themselves in exactly the same way.
Creativity as Part of a Healthy Community
Perhaps what stands out most about CommUNITY Arts STL is the philosophy surrounding the programs themselves.
The organization's vision describes creative experiences as part of building a healthier St. Louis community through positive social activities, creative and mindful action, and lifelong physical practice.
Art isn't positioned merely as entertainment or an optional pastime added after everything "important" has been taken care of.
It is woven into a larger picture of human well-being.
That feels particularly meaningful when thinking about youth arts access.
The value of giving a young person somewhere to create isn't limited to whatever painting, story, performance, or project comes home afterward.
The experience itself can matter.
There can be value in having somewhere to go.
In meeting people.
In moving your body.
In experimenting with an idea.
In discovering a new interest.
In being encouraged by an adult outside your immediate family.
In participating in something alongside other young people.
Sometimes supporting creativity means teaching someone how to make art; sometimes it means removing the barriers that were keeping them from reaching the opportunity in the first place.
CommUNITY Arts STL is working on both.
Proud Art STL: Creativity as a Place to Belong
Sometimes what a young person needs isn't simply an art class.
They need somewhere they can walk in and know that they don't have to hide pieces of themselves in order to belong.
Proud Art STL creates that kind of space for LGBTQIA+ middle and high school students and their allies throughout St. Louis City, St. Louis County, and surrounding communities.
Through creative workshops, events, and community-building, young people can explore different forms of art while connecting with others in an affirming environment.
But perhaps one of the most meaningful things about Proud Art STL is that the organization itself grew from young people identifying something that was missing.
It Started With Two Teens
Proud Art STL was founded in 2022 by two LGBTQIA+ teenagers and their mothers.
While the families were vacationing together, the teens talked about wanting more opportunities to connect with queer people their own age.
From the beginning, they wanted art to be at the center of that community—a tool through which people could connect.
From there, the families began reaching into their existing community.
They contacted teachers, artists, family members, and others who might be interested in helping create such a space.
The early team was entirely volunteer-run.
They found a location at the Shrewsbury City Center, connected with artists willing to facilitate different creative experiences, began offering workshops twice a month, and spread the word to other teens.
There is something powerful about that origin story.
Proud Art STL wasn't created because adults independently decided what teenagers needed and then invited teenagers into the finished product.
Teenagers expressed a need, adults listened, and together, people began building something in response.
Creating Can Mean Almost Anything
Today, Proud Art STL's workshops aren't limited to one definition of art.
Young people might encounter painting, photography, music, writing, weaving, cake decorating, game design, or other creative experiences.
That variety matters because there isn't one correct doorway into creativity.
Someone who feels completely intimidated by a paintbrush might come alive behind a camera.
Someone else might discover fiber arts, performance, storytelling, design, or an art form they had never considered trying.
The goal doesn't have to be producing the most impressive finished object.
Sometimes the important part is simply being able to think:
- I tried something new.
- I made something.
- I met someone.
- I had fun.
- I could be myself here.
Proud Art STL also uses a pay-what-you-can model, helping ensure that cost doesn't automatically determine who gets to participate.
The organization explained that its programming is supported through a combination of grants, community donations, and payments from families who are able to contribute.
If You're Creating Something for Teens, Talk to Teens
When I asked Proud Art STL what advice they would give someone hoping to create emotionally supportive art opportunities for teenagers, one piece of their answer was strikingly simple: talk to teens.
Teen input, they explained, has driven much of what Proud Art STL does.
Young people tell the organization what they need, what they enjoy, and what they don't enjoy.
Their recommendation was that programming intended for teenagers should begin by listening to teenagers themselves.
It sounds obvious.
Yet there is an enormous difference between creating something for people and creating something with them.
Young people are experts on an important subject that no adult—regardless of their education, experience, or good intentions—can completely replace: what it is like to be a young person living their particular life right now.
Listening doesn't mean adults abandon responsibility, boundaries, expertise, or safety.
Proud Art STL emphasized the importance of having appropriate legal, ethical, and safety policies in place when working with minors, including considerations such as background checks and parental information and consent.
They also suggested that having someone involved with a social-work or youth mental-health background can be valuable.
In fact, artists who facilitate Proud Art STL workshops go through an onboarding process that includes an initial conversation, submitting information about themselves and their proposed workshop, and a background check.
Artists are also paid for their work, rather than the organization assuming creative professionals should donate their labor.
Youth voice and responsible adult stewardship don't have to compete.
A healthy space can contain both.
Accessibility Is More Complicated Than Opening the Door
Proud Art STL also offered an important reminder about what the word accessible actually means.
Creating programming that genuinely accommodates different bodies, neurotypes, and needs can be more complicated—and more expensive—than people initially realize.
Building community awareness and trust also takes time.
Proud Art STL has found that free and pay-what-you-can opportunities can make participation easier.
But financial accessibility is only one piece.
When I asked what helps people feel welcomed and safe enough to create, Proud Art STL described a combination of clear expectations, routines, agreements, and structure alongside flexibility and accommodation.
Physical accessibility matters.
So does proximity to public transportation.
And keeping participation financially accessible requires finding other ways to sustain the organization, such as grants and donations.
In other words, saying "everyone is welcome" is a beginning.
The harder question is: have we built a space in which different people can actually participate?
When Art Becomes Belonging
Proud Art STL describes itself as a creative home for LGBTQIA+ teens, and perhaps home is the important word.
Because belonging isn't simply being permitted to enter a room.
It is being able to enter without constantly calculating which parts of yourself need to become smaller, quieter, or invisible.
Creative spaces can offer young people opportunities to experiment not only with materials and ideas, but with voice, identity, connection, and self-expression.
A workshop might begin with photography, weaving, writing, painting, or a game—but the thing someone carries home may be much less tangible.
Maybe they found an art form they love.
Maybe they made a friend.
Maybe somebody understood them.
Maybe an adult took their ideas seriously.
Maybe they experienced a few hours in which being themselves wasn't something they needed to defend.
Art can create objects, but sometimes, when the right people gather around it, art creates community, too.
St. Louis ArtWorks: When Creativity Becomes Opportunity
There is an enormous difference between telling a young person: “You're talented.”
And telling them: “Your creativity has value.”
Encouragement matters.
So does giving young people places to experiment without worrying about whether their work is "good enough."
But as young people grow, another kind of support can become powerful: the opportunity to discover that creativity can lead somewhere.
St. Louis ArtWorks approaches youth arts education through that intersection of creativity, mentorship, employment, and professional development.
Rather than simply inviting young people to attend an art class, ArtWorks employs youth apprentices who work alongside professional teaching artists while developing both creative and workplace skills.
It changes the relationship slightly.
Young people aren't only students learning about art.
They are young artists doing meaningful work.
Learning Alongside Working Artists
One of the valuable things about mentorship is that it allows young people to see what a creative life can actually look like.
Professional artists aren't distant names in books or people whose finished work appears in museums.
They become people you can work beside, ask questions, learn techniques from, observe solving problems, and see navigating the messy process between an idea and a finished piece.
Through its apprenticeship model, St. Louis ArtWorks gives young people opportunities to participate in creative projects while being guided by professional artists.
And that process teaches much more than artistic technique.
Making something collaboratively can require:
- communicating ideas
- listening to feedback
- managing time
- working through frustration
- adapting when something doesn't work
- solving unexpected problems
- contributing to a team
- following a project from idea to completion
- taking responsibility for your part of something larger
Those aren't skills that exist only inside an art studio.
They are life and workplace skills learned through creative practice.
Paying Young People Changes the Message
There is also something meaningful about the word employment in ArtWorks' model.
Young people are paid for participating as apprentices.
That matters.
Our culture can send confusing messages about creativity.
Children may be praised for making art when they're little, only to encounter the idea as they grow older that creative work isn't real work—or that artists should be grateful simply for "exposure" and opportunities to create.
Paying young people for their creative labor sends a different message:
Your time matters. Your contribution matters. Creative work has value.
That doesn't mean every teenager who participates needs to become a professional artist. In fact, that isn't necessary for an arts apprenticeship to be worthwhile.
Someone might eventually become a designer, teacher, entrepreneur, carpenter, photographer, social worker, engineer, illustrator, filmmaker, business owner—or pursue something seemingly unrelated to art.
They can still carry what they learned with them.
Creativity and "Real-World Skills" Aren't Opposites
Arts education is sometimes treated as though it sits on the opposite side of practical preparation for adulthood.
There are the creative things—painting, music, theater, photography, sculpture, design.
And then there are supposedly the serious things—jobs, communication, money, responsibility, problem-solving, collaboration.
But creative work can involve all of those things.
A mural has deadlines.
A collaborative project requires communication.
A design problem requires experimentation.
A commission requires understanding what another person needs.
A mistake requires adaptation.
A finished piece requires persistence through the much less glamorous middle stage when the original idea isn't quite working yet.
Creative practice can become a remarkably practical place to learn how to try, fail, revise, collaborate, communicate, and continue.
An Organization Other Arts Organizations Recommend
St. Louis ArtWorks also surfaced organically while I was learning about other creative organizations in the area.
CommUNITY Arts STL Executive Director Paige Walden specifically suggested ArtWorks as a resource, and when I separately asked Proud Art STL about organizations and resources worth connecting with, St. Louis ArtWorks appeared in their recommendations as well.
Proud Art also pointed to it when discussing organizations that could be helpful for someone learning about supportive programming for teenagers.
That overlap feels worth noticing.
Healthy creative communities aren't necessarily collections of organizations competing to become the place where everyone goes.
They can become ecosystems.
One organization might provide someone's first creative experience.
Another might offer community and belonging.
Another might provide specialized training.
Another might connect a teenager with professional artists or their first paid creative opportunity.
No single organization has to meet every need for every young person.
Sometimes the most powerful community is one in which organizations know about one another—and help people find the next place that might help them grow.
Taking Young People's Creativity Seriously
Perhaps that is what stands out most about the ArtWorks model.
There is room for creativity that exists simply because it is joyful.
Children and teenagers deserve opportunities to make things without every hobby becoming productive, profitable, competitive, or career-oriented.
But young people who do want to take their creativity further deserve pathways for that, too.
They deserve opportunities to encounter professional artists.
To develop skills.
To participate in substantial projects.
To discover possibilities they may not have known existed.
And, sometimes, to receive their first paycheck because of something they helped create.
Supporting young people's creativity isn't only about telling them to dream; sometimes it means building real opportunities underneath those dreams.
Saint Louis Story Stitchers: Creativity as a Voice
Young people are often talked about.
Adults discuss what teenagers need, what problems they're facing, what they're worried about, what they're doing, and what their futures should look like.
But something changes when young people are given the tools and the platform to speak for themselves.
Saint Louis Story Stitchers Artists Collective approaches creativity as a vehicle for exactly that: storytelling, community engagement, connection, and social change.
The organization's mission is to document St. Louis through art and word while promoting understanding, civic pride, intergenerational relationships, and literacy.
Story Stitchers brings together underserved young people ages 16–25, the vast majority of whom are Black or youth of color, to discuss current issues and transform local stories into art intended to create social change.
Their goal isn't simply to teach young people how to make art.
It is to help young people use art to say something.
Turning Experiences Into Stories—and Stories Into Art
Storytelling can take countless forms.
A story might become a song.
A conversation might become a podcast.
An experience might become poetry, photography, video, dance, or a live performance.
Through Story Stitchers, young people and artists use creative practices to explore issues affecting their lives and communities.
The organization describes its work as a form of urban storytelling, combining art and word to document St. Louis while encouraging greater understanding between people.
That distinction matters because the people who live within a community know things about it that statistics and outside observations alone cannot capture.
They know what it feels like to grow up there.
They know which places feel important.
They know what people worry about.
They know where joy exists alongside hardship.
They know the stories outsiders might never hear.
And young people have perspectives within those communities that adults cannot simply recreate for them.
Giving young people creative tools gives them another way to preserve and communicate those perspectives.
Creativity Can Participate in Difficult Conversations
Story Stitchers doesn't shy away from complicated subjects.
Its creative work has addressed public-health and community issues including violence, mental health, bullying, bias, and other concerns affecting young people and the wider St. Louis community.
That may seem very different from the image that sometimes comes to mind when we hear youth art program.
But creativity doesn't have to exist separately from difficult realities.
Art has always helped human beings make sense of the world around them.
A painting can communicate something that would feel different in an essay.
A song can reach someone who might never attend a community meeting.
A performance can make an issue feel human rather than abstract.
A podcast can create room for conversations that otherwise might never happen.
And creating something can give a young person the opportunity to move from simply being affected by an issue to becoming someone who can participate in the conversation surrounding it.
That is a different kind of empowerment.
Young People as Contributors, Not Problems to Solve
There is another important shift embedded in this model.
Conversations about teenagers—particularly teenagers living in underserved communities—can easily become centered entirely around risk.
- What problems are they facing?
- How do adults keep them out of trouble?
- How do communities fix what's going wrong?
Those questions can matter, but if that is the only way young people are viewed, something essential disappears.
Young people aren't simply collections of risks and needs waiting for adults to intervene.
They also have ideas, observations, creativity, knowledge, questions, humor, talents, solutions, and stories worth hearing.
Story Stitchers describes its young participants as people capable of becoming active and engaged citizens.
Its programming combines meaningful self-expression with mentorship, cultural experiences, vocational development, community-building, and opportunities to share creative work publicly.
The question shifts from: “How do we fix these young people?”
To something closer to: “What happens when we give young people resources, mentorship, creative tools, and a platform—and then listen to what they have to say?”
Art Can Build Bridges Between Generations
Story Stitchers' mission also specifically includes intergenerational relationships.
That feels significant.
Healthy communities aren't built when generations exist entirely in separate worlds.
Young people have perspectives older generations need to hear, while older generations carry experiences, histories, skills, and knowledge that younger people shouldn't have to rediscover entirely on their own.
Creative work can create a meeting place between them.
A story can preserve history.
A conversation can challenge an assumption.
A collaborative project can place people of different ages beside one another instead of on opposing sides of a stereotype.
And listening can travel in both directions.
Young people need mentors—but adults and communities can learn from young people, too.
Who Gets to Tell the Story Matters
Perhaps that is the larger lesson behind Story Stitchers.
Communities are constantly being described.
Neighborhoods are summarized in headlines.
Young people become statistics.
Groups of people are reduced to demographics, problems, trends, or assumptions.
Art offers another possibility: people can participate in telling their own stories.
That doesn't mean every story has to be inspirational.
It doesn't mean creativity has to turn hardship into something beautiful.
And it doesn't mean young artists carry the responsibility of solving every problem affecting their communities.
It simply means their perspectives belong in the conversation.
A young person's photograph, poem, song, podcast, performance, video, or story can say:
- This is what I see.
- This is what I've experienced.
- This is what matters to me.
- This is what I wish people understood.
- This is what I imagine could be different.
And sometimes creating a healthier community begins with something deceptively simple: making sure the people who live within it have opportunities to be heard.
LitShop: Creativity as Agency
Sometimes creativity looks like a paintbrush.
Sometimes it looks like a hammer.
One of the most important things we can offer young people is a definition of creativity large enough for them to find themselves inside it.
Not every creative child loves drawing.
Some want to build.
Some write.
Some design.
Some take things apart to understand how they work.
Some love fabric, wood, machines, architecture, storytelling, or solving practical problems with their hands.
St. Louis nonprofit LitShop creates opportunities for girls and gender-expansive youth to explore that broader world of possibility through an unusual combination of literacy, hands-on building and making, and leadership development.
And underneath all of those skills is something even more fundamental: the opportunity to discover what you're capable of.
Creativity Doesn't Have to Look Like "Art"
Ask someone whether they're creative, and they may immediately think about whether they can draw realistically, paint beautifully, sing well, or make something traditionally considered artistic.
If they can't, they might simply respond: “I'm not creative.”
But creativity is much larger than that.
It can mean imagining something that doesn't exist yet and figuring out how to make it real.
It can mean experimenting with materials.
It can mean looking at a problem from several directions.
It can mean writing a story, designing an object, constructing something useful, learning how tools work, or trying again when the first attempt doesn't turn out the way you imagined.
Making is creativity, too.
That makes organizations such as LitShop an important addition to a conversation about youth arts and creativity.
Young people need opportunities to encounter different creative languages before deciding that creativity isn't for them.
There Is Power in Making Something Yourself
Hands-on making can provide a particularly tangible kind of confidence.
There is a difference between being told: “You're capable.”
And looking at something that didn't exist before—something you designed, built, repaired, wrote, printed, assembled, or created—and realizing: “I did that.”
The finished object becomes evidence of the process behind it.
Maybe you didn't know how to use the tool when you started.
Maybe you made a mistake.
Maybe you needed help.
Maybe your original plan didn't work.
Maybe you had to take something apart and try again.
And then, eventually, something existed because you stayed with the process long enough to create it.
That experience can teach a lesson much larger than the project itself.
I don't know how to do this yet is very different from I can't do this.
Creativity gives young people repeated opportunities to discover the difference.
Making Space for Girls and Gender-Expansive Youth
There is another layer to LitShop's work because of who its programming is designed to serve.
Some tools, trades, building practices, and technical creative fields have historically been presented to young people through gendered expectations about who naturally belongs there.
A girl holding a power tool shouldn't be remarkable.
Neither should a young person learning to build furniture, design a structure, experiment with fabrication, or discover that they love working with materials traditionally associated with male-dominated spaces.
But belonging often begins with exposure and opportunity.
It is difficult for someone to discover an interest in something they have never been given permission, encouragement, tools, or space to try.
Creating intentional opportunities for girls and gender-expansive youth to make and build can quietly expand the question from: “Is this something people like me do?”
To: “What would I like to make?”
And that is a much more interesting question.
Literacy Is Creative, Too
The Lit in LitShop matters as much as the Shop.
Writing and making may initially seem like very different activities, but both begin with something that doesn't exist yet.
A blank page.
A pile of materials.
An idea.
Then comes the process of turning that idea into something another person can experience.
Literacy gives young people tools to articulate thoughts, tell stories, communicate ideas, understand information, and make sense of their experiences.
Hands-on making gives them another language through which to experiment, problem-solve, and express those ideas.
Neither needs to exist in isolation.
A young person can be a writer and a builder.
An artist and a problem-solver.
A reader and a designer.
Creative identities don't have to fit neatly into one box.
Confidence Doesn't Require Doing Everything Alone
There's also an important distinction between agency and complete independence.
Being capable doesn't mean never needing instruction.
It doesn't mean knowing how to use every tool immediately, never making mistakes, or figuring everything out without asking for help.
Healthy creative environments provide guidance precisely because learning requires it.
Someone demonstrates the tool.
Someone explains the safety rules.
Someone answers questions.
Someone helps troubleshoot when something goes wrong.
And gradually, the learner can do more themselves.
Support doesn't take agency away. Good support helps agency grow.
That lesson extends far beyond a workshop.
Young people need adults who don't do everything for them—but also don't abandon them to figure everything out alone.
There is a middle ground where someone can say:
- I'll teach you.
- I'll make sure you're safe.
- I'll help when you need it.
- And I'll trust you to try.
From "I Can't" to "Look What I Made"
Perhaps that is what makes hands-on creative opportunities so powerful.
Young people are constantly discovering the edges of what they know.
Sometimes those edges can feel like proof of limitation:
- I've never done this.
- I don't know how.
- I'm bad at this.
- Other people know what they're doing.
But creative learning provides another interpretation.
Not knowing how to do something can simply mean you haven't learned it yet.
Give someone tools.
Give them instruction.
Give them materials.
Give them permission to experiment.
Give them enough support to feel safe and enough freedom to make their own decisions.
Then see what happens.
Maybe they discover a career interest.
Maybe they become an artist, designer, writer, carpenter, engineer, architect, entrepreneur, educator, or maker.
Maybe none of those things happen.
Maybe they simply leave knowing how to do something today that they couldn't do yesterday.
That matters, too.
Because sometimes the most important thing a young person creates isn't the project sitting in front of them.
It's a slightly larger understanding of what they might be capable of.
Springboard to Learning: Bringing Creativity to Where Children Already Are
Sometimes the biggest barrier to an arts opportunity is not whether it exists.
It's everything required to reach it.
A family has to know the program exists.
The schedule has to work.
Someone may need transportation.
There may be registration fees, class fees, or supply costs.
A parent or caregiver may need enough time and energy to research the options in the first place.
For some children, those pieces come together.
For others, they don't.
That's one reason school-based arts programming can be so important.
Rather than asking every child and family to find their own pathway into the arts, Springboard to Learning brings professional teaching artists and creative experiences directly into schools.
Sometimes increasing access to art means bringing art to where young people already are.
When Artists Enter the Classroom
A visiting artist can introduce something entirely new into a child's world.
Maybe it's theater.
Maybe it's dance or movement.
Maybe it's music, storytelling, visual art, or creative writing.
For a student who already loves creating, that experience can provide another opportunity to develop an existing interest.
But perhaps even more importantly, it can reach the student who doesn't yet know they're interested.
Children cannot seek out every possibility they've never encountered.
A student who has never experienced live theater may not know they love performing.
Someone who has never met a working artist may not realize art can become a profession.
A child who struggles to engage with information presented one way might suddenly connect with it when movement, storytelling, imagery, or hands-on creation enters the lesson.
Exposure creates possibilities.
Sometimes all it takes is one experience for a young person to think: wait, I like this.
Creativity and Learning Don't Have to Compete
Arts education is sometimes treated as though it takes time away from "real" learning.
Reading, writing, science, mathematics, and history belong inside the serious academic world, while art belongs somewhere else—perhaps after school, when the important work is finished.
But creativity and academic learning don't have to occupy opposing sides of a classroom.
A student can explore a story through theater.
Writing can become performance.
History can be encountered through storytelling.
Scientific ideas can inspire visual or hands-on exploration.
Movement can help students engage physically with concepts.
Art can offer another pathway into material rather than simply another subject competing for attention.
And that matters because children don't all learn in exactly the same way.
A classroom may contain students who understand information easily through reading, others who connect strongly with visual material, others who benefit from movement or hands-on experimentation, and others who need multiple ways of encountering an idea before it clicks.
Creative learning doesn't replace traditional academic instruction.
It expands the number of doors through which a student might enter.
The Teaching Artist Brings Something Different
There is also something valuable about children encountering practicing artists.
A teaching artist can bring not only a particular skill, but the mindset that accompanies creative practice.
Artists experiment.
They make revisions.
They work with uncertainty.
They encounter things that don't turn out the way they imagined.
They solve problems.
They make choices without always knowing beforehand which choice will work.
Those experiences quietly teach something children need far beyond art:
not getting something right immediately does not mean you have failed.
In creative work, revision isn't evidence that the first attempt was worthless.
It is simply part of making.
The drawing changes.
The story gets rewritten.
The performance gets rehearsed.
The design gets adjusted.
The idea evolves.
Learning to remain curious when something doesn't work can be just as important as learning how to make the thing itself.
Reaching Children Who Might Otherwise Be Missed
Community arts organizations are invaluable, but outside programming inevitably requires some amount of initiative and access from families.
School-based programming can reach a different group.
It can reach the child whose family doesn't know which arts organizations exist.
The child who can't stay after school.
The child whose family can't afford another activity.
The child without transportation.
The child who would never describe themselves as an artist and therefore would never think to sign up for an art program.
And sometimes that last child is precisely the one who needs the opportunity.
We can become surprisingly attached to identities very early:
- I'm athletic.
- I'm academic.
- I'm shy.
- I'm not musical.
- I'm bad at drawing.
- I'm not creative.
But young people are still discovering themselves.
They deserve opportunities to encounter things before deciding those things aren't for them.
Art Can Make Room for Different Ways of Communicating
Creative learning can also matter for students who don't always find conventional classroom participation easy.
Not every child is comfortable raising their hand.
Not every thought arrives neatly as spoken language.
Not everyone processes information at the same speed or expresses understanding in the same way.
Creative practices can provide additional forms of communication.
A student might show something through movement.
Draw it.
Act it out.
Write it into a story.
Build it.
Turn it into a rhythm.
Collaborate with someone else to create it.
None of those approaches makes academic expectations unnecessary.
But they can reveal abilities and understanding that might be less visible when children are given only one acceptable way to participate.
Sometimes changing the medium changes who gets the opportunity to shine.
Bringing the Doorway Closer
Not every young person will become an artist.
They don't need to.
The purpose of exposing children to creativity isn't to manufacture future painters, actors, musicians, dancers, or writers.
It's to make sure young people have enough opportunities to discover what speaks to them.
Some encounters will last one afternoon.
Others might spark hobbies.
Some might influence how a student learns.
And occasionally, an experience may open a door someone continues walking through for years.
We cannot know which experience will matter most to which child beforehand.
That's exactly why access matters.
A young person shouldn't have to already know that they belong in the arts before they're given the chance to encounter them.
Sometimes the first step is simply bringing creativity close enough for them to discover it.
Intersect Arts Center: Creativity as Exploration
Young people are asked surprisingly early to define themselves.
- What are you good at?
- What's your favorite subject?
- What do you want to be when you grow up?
Even creative identity can become another category someone is expected to understand: Are you an artist? A musician? A writer? A dancer?
But there is another perfectly reasonable answer: “I don't know yet.”
And young people need spaces where not knowing yet is allowed.
Intersect Arts Center is a multidisciplinary community arts organization in St. Louis where creativity isn't confined to one medium or one definition of what it means to be an artist.
Its broader approach to the arts creates room for something essential to creative development: exploration.
You Can't Know What You Love Until You Encounter It
Someone can spend years believing they aren't artistic simply because the few creative activities they've encountered didn't speak to them.
Maybe drawing isn't their thing.
That doesn't mean photography won't be.
Maybe they don't enjoy painting but become fascinated by clay.
Maybe traditional writing assignments feel miserable, but storytelling comes alive through performance.
Maybe they love fashion, movement, cooking, sculpture, design, or making things with their hands.
The creative world is enormous.
Yet children can only develop interests in things they've had some opportunity to encounter.
That's why exposure matters.
Sometimes discovering a passion begins with being handed a material you've never touched before and being invited to see what happens.
Trying Something Isn't the Same as Committing to It
There can be a subtle pressure around hobbies—especially as children get older—to justify the time spent doing them.
- Are you good at it?
- Are you going to stick with it?
- Will you perform?
- Will you compete?
- Could you sell what you make?
- Will this help you get into college?
- Could it become a career?
Those aren't inherently bad questions.
For someone who discovers a serious interest, opportunities for mastery and professional development can be wonderful.
But they don't need to be the price of admission.
A young person should also be allowed to take a ceramics class and decide ceramics isn't for them.
They should be able to try dance without becoming a dancer.
Pick up a camera without becoming a photographer.
Write something without publishing it.
Make an awkward first project.
Change interests.
Come back later.
Exploration isn't wasted simply because it doesn't become expertise.
Learning what doesn't resonate can be part of discovering what does.
Beginnerhood Needs Somewhere Safe to Exist
Trying unfamiliar things requires vulnerability.
Experienced artists can make creative work look effortless because we usually see the finished result rather than the years of awkward beginnings that came before it.
Young people need opportunities to encounter the other side of creativity:
The crooked first attempt.
The clay piece that collapses.
The photograph that doesn't look anything like the one imagined.
The dance step that takes twenty tries.
The idea that works beautifully in your head and strangely once it enters the physical world.
These aren't failures of creativity.
They are creativity.
A healthy creative environment makes room for experimentation without turning every mistake into evidence that someone isn't talented enough.
Because talent is a terrible prerequisite for learning.
You don't need to prove you're good at something before you're allowed to learn how to do it.
Different Art Forms Reveal Different Parts of Us
Multidisciplinary creative spaces can also give young people something a highly specialized program cannot: the opportunity to experience how different kinds of creativity feel.
Some people love the quiet concentration of working alone.
Others come alive through collaboration.
Someone may enjoy the tactile experience of clay or fiber.
Another person might prefer digital creation.
Some need movement.
Some love words.
Some enjoy meticulous processes.
Others thrive when materials are unpredictable.
And none of those preferences makes one person more creative than another.
Sometimes trying different forms of art teaches someone not only what they like making, but something about how they like thinking, learning, working, and expressing themselves.
That kind of self-knowledge can travel far beyond an art studio.
Creativity Can Be Play Before It Becomes Purpose
Adults sometimes become so focused on helping young people develop that we forget how much development happens naturally through play.
Creative exploration doesn't always need an objective.
A young person doesn't have to walk away from every workshop with improved career readiness, measurable academic gains, a portfolio piece, or a profound realization about themselves.
Sometimes they can simply enjoy making something.
There is value in curiosity for curiosity's sake.
There is value in getting messy.
There is value in laughing when something turns out completely differently than planned.
There is value in spending an afternoon absorbed in something interesting.
There is value in asking: “What happens if I try this?” without already needing to know the answer.
Joy is not an insignificant outcome of creativity.
From “What Are You Good At?” to “What Would You Like to Try?”
Maybe that's one of the most valuable shifts a multidisciplinary arts environment can offer.
Instead of beginning with: what are you talented at?
We can begin with: what are you curious about?
The second question leaves considerably more room.
- Room to be a beginner
- Room to change your mind
- Room to discover something unexpected
- Room to make terrible art
- Room to make wonderful art
- Room to make something you can't quite categorize
- Room to discover that the thing you were convinced you'd hate is fascinating
- Room to discover that the thing you thought you'd love isn't actually for you
- Room to create without deciding what that creativity needs to become
Young people have plenty of time to develop expertise later if they choose.
First, they need enough doors to discover which ones they might want to walk through.
Sometimes nurturing creativity doesn't mean identifying a child's talent and developing it; sometimes it means giving them a world large enough to explore until they begin discovering themselves.
What These Organizations Teach Us About Youth Creativity
Looking across these organizations, one thing becomes clear:
Creating an arts program and making creativity genuinely accessible are not necessarily the same thing.
An opportunity can exist and still remain out of reach.
A class can be free, but inaccessible without transportation.
A building can have art supplies but be difficult for someone with a physical disability to navigate.
A workshop can say everyone is welcome while its environment makes certain young people feel as though they have to hide who they are.
A school can value creativity while lacking the resources to provide consistent arts programming.
Access has layers.
And the organizations throughout this Creative Spotlight demonstrate different ways of addressing them.
CommUNITY Arts STL helps tackle practical barriers such as transportation and tuition.
Proud Art STL creates affirming creative community for LGBTQIA+ teens and their allies.
St. Louis ArtWorks provides mentorship, employment, and pathways for young people ready to develop their creative skills further.
Story Stitchers gives young people tools for telling their own stories and participating in conversations about their communities.
LitShop expands creativity into building, making, literacy, and leadership.
Springboard to Learning brings artists into schools, reaching children who may never independently find an outside arts program.
Intersect Arts Center creates room for exploration across creative disciplines.
None of them solves every barrier.
Together, however, they help reveal what meaningful access can actually require.
Access Means More Than Affordability
Cost is an obvious barrier, and an important one.
But making something free doesn't automatically make it accessible.
Young people may also need:
- Financial access: Can their family afford the program, supplies, equipment, or related expenses?
- Transportation access: Can they realistically get there and back?
- Physical access: Can someone with mobility or other physical needs navigate the space?
- Neurodivergent and sensory access: Is there flexibility for different ways of processing, communicating, participating, and regulating?
- Emotional safety: Can someone experiment, make mistakes, and express themselves without humiliation or ridicule?
- Representation and belonging: Are different identities and experiences genuinely welcomed rather than merely tolerated?
- Information access: Does the young person or their family even know the opportunity exists?
- Choice and agency: Do young people have some voice in the experiences being created for them?
- Developmental pathways: If someone discovers a serious interest, are there opportunities to keep learning and growing?
Proud Art STL described this complexity directly when reflecting on what it takes to create accessible programming.
Supporting different neurotypes, bodies, and needs can be more complicated than expected, while affordability and community trust present additional considerations.
When describing welcoming creative environments, they also emphasized combining clear expectations and structure with flexibility and accommodation, alongside considerations such as physically accessible spaces, public transportation, and financial accessibility.
Accessibility isn't a single box that can be checked.
It is an ongoing question: who can participate easily? Who has to work much harder to participate? And who might still be missing entirely?
Different Young People Need Different Doorways
There also isn't one perfect kind of youth arts program.
Some young people need somewhere safe to explore.
Some need mentors.
Some need community.
Some need transportation.
Some need an opportunity that happens during the school day because an after-school program simply isn't realistic.
Some want to make art for fun.
Some want to use creativity to talk about issues that matter to them.
Some are ready for professional experience and paid work.
Some don't even think of themselves as creative yet.
Supporting youth creativity doesn't require funneling every young person through the same doorway. It requires having enough different doorways.
That is one reason a healthy creative ecosystem matters.
A community benefits when schools, artists, nonprofits, libraries, makerspaces, museums, funders, families, and other organizations don't have to independently become everything to everyone.
They can do different things well.
They can know about one another.
They can collaborate.
They can refer people elsewhere when another organization better fits what someone needs.
And young people can move between those spaces as their interests and circumstances change.
Access Creates Possibility
There is no way to know beforehand what a creative opportunity will become in someone's life.
The child taking one workshop may never touch that medium again.
Another might discover a lifelong hobby.
Someone else may find their first real community.
Another may discover a way of expressing something they couldn't explain aloud.
Someone might meet a mentor.
Someone might eventually pursue a creative career.
Someone might simply spend an afternoon feeling curious, capable, and happy.
None of those outcomes is insignificant.
The purpose of arts access isn't to identify which children are talented enough to deserve investment.
It's to make discovery possible in the first place.
Because before someone can develop a passion, build a skill, find a creative community, or imagine a possibility for their future, they first need the opportunity to encounter it.
Creativity may belong to everyone—but meaningful access requires us to make sure everyone has a genuine way in.
Young People Deserve a Voice in What We Build for Them
There is a phrase that appears frequently when we talk about children and teenagers: “We know what's best for them.”
Sometimes adults do know things young people don't yet know.
Adults carry experience.
They have responsibilities around safety, ethics, development, finances, legal requirements, and long-term consequences.
Young people need guidance, protection, mentorship, and boundaries.
But adult responsibility doesn't require treating young people as though their perspectives don't matter.
There is an enormous difference between guiding someone and never listening to them.
And when we're creating programs specifically intended to serve young people, listening isn't an optional extra.
Start by Asking
When I asked Proud Art STL what advice they would give someone beginning the process of creating supportive arts programming for teenagers, part of their answer was wonderfully straightforward: talk to youth.
They explained that teen input has shaped much of what Proud Art STL does.
Young people tell them what they need, what they enjoy, and what they don't enjoy.
Their recommendation was that anyone creating programming for teenagers should begin by listening to teenagers themselves.
It's difficult to imagine better experts on what young people currently need than young people themselves.
That doesn't mean every request automatically becomes a program.
It means their experiences become part of the information used to build one.
“For” and “With” Are Different Words
There is a subtle but important difference between creating something for a community and creating something with a community.
Adults can design a beautiful program on paper.
They can choose activities they believe teenagers will love.
They can select a schedule that seems reasonable.
They can create rules intended to make everyone comfortable.
They can decide what success should look like.
And then actual teenagers can arrive and experience the program completely differently.
- Maybe the activity doesn't interest them.
- Maybe the schedule conflicts with school, work, transportation, or family responsibilities.
- Maybe something intended to feel welcoming actually feels awkward.
- Maybe the environment is too loud.
- Maybe the rules designed to create safety feel unnecessarily restrictive.
- Maybe the young people have ideas nobody considered.
You don't discover those things by assuming.
You discover them by asking.
Listening Doesn't Mean Giving Up Adult Responsibility
Youth-centered programming also shouldn't place adult responsibilities onto young people.
Teenagers shouldn't be expected to navigate nonprofit law, create safeguarding policies, conduct background checks, manage finances, or carry responsibility for keeping other participants safe.
Those responsibilities remain with adults.
Proud Art STL emphasized that organizations working with minors need to understand relevant legal and safety requirements, including background checks and parental contact, information, and consent.
They also suggested the value of involving someone with social-work or youth-well-being experience.
So the choice isn't between: adults are in charge and young people have no voice
Or: young people make every decision and adults step aside.
There is a healthier middle ground.
Adults can provide the structure.
Adults can hold responsibility for safety.
Adults can bring experience and resources.
Adults can establish necessary boundaries.
And young people can still meaningfully influence what is being created for them.
Young People Notice Things Adults Don't
Every generation grows up in a world slightly different from the one before it.
The technology changes.
The language changes.
The pressures change.
The culture changes.
The ways young people socialize change.
The things they encounter at school and online change.
Even an adult who remembers adolescence vividly remembers their own adolescence, not the exact experience of being sixteen today.
That makes curiosity important.
Instead of assuming: “I was a child/teenager once, so I understand teenagers,”
We can ask:
- What is it like to be you?
- What do you wish adults understood?
- What makes you feel comfortable here?
- What makes participation difficult?
- What would you actually like to learn or make?
- What would make you want to come back?
- What isn't working?
And then—perhaps the hardest part—take the answers seriously.
Feedback Should Be Allowed to Change Something
There is little value in asking young people what they think if nothing they say is ever permitted to influence a decision.
Being asked for an opinion can feel empowering.
Being asked repeatedly while watching adults ignore every answer can feel like the opposite.
Meaningful participation doesn't mean every suggestion is possible.
Money, staffing, safety, space, time, and legal requirements create real limitations.
But adults can still explain:
- We can do that.
- We can't do that, and here's why.
- We can't do exactly that, but perhaps we can try this.
- We hadn't considered that.
- Let's change it.
That teaches something valuable, too.
It shows young people that communication isn't merely ceremonial.
Their voice can have an effect.
The Goal Isn't to Build the Perfect Program
No youth organization will get everything right.
Neither will schools, parents, teachers, mentors, community organizations, or artists.
Young people themselves won't always know what will work until they experience it.
That's okay.
The goal isn't perfect prediction.
It's creating enough trust and flexibility that something can evolve.
Proud Art STL's own beginnings offer a beautiful example.
The organization didn't originate solely from adults identifying a theoretical community need.
Two LGBTQIA+ teenagers talked about wanting more queer community among people their own age, with art at the center as a means of connection.
Adults listened, reached into their networks, found artists and a space, and began building alongside that need.
Something that began with a conversation became a real community.
And perhaps that's one of the simplest lessons in this entire Creative Spotlight: if we want to create places where young people can grow, connect, create, and belong, we should make sure their voices are present while we're building them.
More Places for Young People to Create in St. Louis
The organizations highlighted above represent only part of St. Louis's creative landscape.
Depending on a young person's age, interests, location, accessibility needs, and the type of experience they're looking for, there are other places throughout the region worth exploring.
Craft Alliance
Craft Alliance offers opportunities for young people to encounter craft through hands-on creative experiences.
Its educational programming spans mediums such as ceramics, fiber, metals, print and paper arts, and other forms of contemporary craft.
For a young person who enjoys working with their hands, craft can provide something especially satisfying: materials respond.
Clay changes beneath your fingers. Fiber becomes something wearable or sculptural. Metal can be shaped. Paper can be transformed.
The process itself can become part of the discovery.
Craft Alliance is particularly worth exploring for families looking for opportunities beyond the drawing-and-painting version of children's art education.
MADE for Kids
MADE for Kids, created by The Magic House, approaches creativity through making, designing, building, experimenting, and inventing.
Rather than separating art from other kinds of hands-on discovery, maker-centered environments can allow creativity and problem-solving to overlap.
A child might be an artist.
They might be an inventor.
They might be a builder.
They might be all three at once.
And sometimes the distinction isn't particularly important.
The important thing is having somewhere curiosity can become something tangible.
South Broadway Art Project
South Broadway Art Project is another local option for hands-on creative learning, with programming that has included opportunities for children and teenagers as well as adults.
Its strong connection to ceramics offers young people an opportunity to work with a medium that is simultaneously artistic and physical.
Clay can be wonderfully forgiving in that way.
Something can collapse.
It can be reshaped.
An idea can change halfway through.
Sometimes the material itself seems to have opinions about what you're trying to make.
And learning to work with a material rather than completely control it can become its own kind of creative education.
Thomas Dunn Learning Center
Thomas Dunn Learning Center is a community education center in South St. Louis offering educational, enrichment, and creative opportunities for people across different ages.
It is also one of the resources Proud Art STL specifically recommended when I asked about organizations that could be helpful when learning about supportive programming for teenagers.
Community learning centers can occupy an important space between formal schooling and specialized arts institutions.
They create opportunities for people to learn and gather without requiring every interest to become a long-term commitment.
For a young person, sometimes that lower-pressure doorway is exactly what makes trying something possible.
And There Are Still More Doors
Museums, libraries, theaters, community centers, parks departments, makerspaces, schools, independent studios, and other nonprofits throughout St. Louis also offer creative programming for children and teenagers.
Programs change. Age requirements change. Scholarships and free opportunities may become available. New workshops appear. Others are seasonal.
So this list isn't intended to function as a definitive directory.
Instead, consider it a starting point.
If one organization doesn't fit a young person's needs, interests, schedule, location, or budget, that doesn't necessarily mean the opportunity isn't out there.
Sometimes finding the right creative space simply means knowing there is more than one door to try.
Before planning a visit or signing up, check each organization’s website directly for the most current information.
Creativity Doesn't Have an Age Requirement
There is something wonderfully ordinary about creativity.
Before anyone decides whether they're an artist, they create.
Children draw without worrying whether their proportions are correct.
They invent stories without wondering whether anyone would publish them.
They build impossible structures out of cardboard boxes, turn blankets into forts, make songs out of nonsense words, decorate things simply because they can, and transform ordinary objects through imagination.
Then, somewhere along the way, many people begin asking different questions:
- Am I good at this?
- Is this useful?
- Could I make money from it?
- Am I talented enough?
- Isn't this something I should have learned when I was younger?
And creativity can slowly become something reserved for creative people rather than something understood as part of being human.
But young people don't need to prove artistic talent before they deserve opportunities to create.
They don't need a future career plan.
They don't need to produce something impressive.
They don't even need to keep doing the activity afterward.
Sometimes creating is enough.
We Don't Know Which Opportunity Will Matter
One of the difficult things about supporting young people is that we cannot know in advance which experiences will become important.
The workshop someone almost didn't attend might introduce them to their favorite medium.
The teaching artist visiting a classroom might become the first creative professional a child has ever met.
A paid apprenticeship might change what a teenager believes is possible for their future.
An affirming art group might introduce someone to people who finally understand them.
A storytelling project might give a young person language for something they have been trying to express.
A maker workshop might produce nothing more profound than an oddly shaped object and a really enjoyable afternoon.
That counts, too.
Not every meaningful experience needs to become a life-changing one.
Sometimes joy is enough reason to make something available.
Sometimes curiosity is enough.
Sometimes connection is enough.
Sometimes spending two hours completely absorbed in making something is enough.
Creativity Belongs Outside the Art World
Supporting youth creativity also means widening our understanding of what creativity looks like.
It belongs in studios, certainly.
But it also belongs in classrooms.
Libraries.
Community centers.
Workshops.
Theaters.
Makerspaces.
Kitchens.
Gardens.
Woodshops.
Computer labs.
Neighborhoods.
And homes.
Creativity can look like painting, but it can also look like designing a game, writing a story, decorating a cake, sewing something, photographing a neighborhood, choreographing a dance, building furniture, performing a character, inventing something, composing music, solving a design problem, or finding an entirely new way to use an ordinary material.
There are countless ways to be creative because there are countless ways to make something that wasn't there before.
Access Shouldn't Depend on Luck
Perhaps the biggest thread connecting all of the organizations in this Creative Spotlight is that creativity may be universal, but access to creative opportunity isn't.
It shouldn't require having parents who can afford private lessons.
Or living near the right program.
Or attending a well-funded school.
Or having reliable transportation.
Or already knowing someone in the arts.
Or fitting comfortably into environments designed around only one kind of learner, body, identity, or communication style.
Young people shouldn't need extraordinary luck simply to discover what they might love.
The organizations throughout St. Louis doing this work cannot eliminate every barrier.
No single nonprofit, school, artist, teacher, family, or community space can.
But each additional doorway matters.
- Each scholarship matters.
- Each ride matters.
- Each accessible classroom matters.
- Each teaching artist matters.
- Each mentor matters.
- Each welcoming table covered in supplies matters.
- Each adult willing to ask a young person “What do you think?”—and genuinely listen to the answer—matters.
Because access isn't only about providing an activity.
It's about creating the conditions in which possibility can be discovered.
Give Them Room to Create
We don't know who a young person will become.
That's part of the beauty of being young.
They don't entirely know yet either.
Our job isn't to decide the answer for them.
We can give them tools.
Introduce possibilities.
Remove unnecessary barriers.
Teach skills.
Provide safety.
Offer guidance.
Listen.
Encourage curiosity.
Let them change their minds.
Let them make mistakes.
Let them make things simply because making them feels good.
And give them enough different doors that they have a genuine chance of finding the ones that belong to them.
Some will become artists.
Some won't.
Some will carry creative practices throughout their lives without ever using the word artist to describe themselves.
But perhaps the goal was never to produce more people who fit neatly underneath that label.
Perhaps it is simply to raise people who know that their ideas are worth exploring, their voices are worth hearing, curiosity is worth following, and they are capable of creating something that did not exist before.
Art and creativity are important at every age.
But childhood and adolescence offer us an extraordinary opportunity: to help young people discover that creativity belongs to them before the world has a chance to convince them otherwise.
Want even more content about creativity and art?
Be sure to check out all of our creative chronicles!
If you'd like to see examples of my work, you can find some of my art and creations at Redbubble and Gumroad!
Looking to learn more about my recent journey?
Check out some of these articles:
-Hidden Gems for St. Louis Artists
-Hidden Gems for Autistic & Neurodivergent Adults
-Learning What Love Was Supposed to Feel Like
-I Wasn't Broken--I'm Burned Out
-The Difference Between Resting and Giving Up
Jessica Carey
