Creative Practice
We can’t build what we can’t imagine
Creative practice is fundamental to our healing: it’s how we express our stories and write new ones for ourselves. Collective visioning for our futures is art.
I believe that cultivating sovereignty over our creative bodies is a human need. Beyond traditional art forms, “living creatively” - bringing creative Attention and Intention to our relationships, homes, habits - means it is possible for us all to live into the truth that we are all artists.
I also believe that access to the arts is not a privilege but a right and a necessity. Limiting arts accessibility, funding and censorship are tools of oppression and abuse.
Creative "cross-training" has been crucial to the development of my work, and an expansion of what it means to experience and practice embodied and community-centered healing.
MetaMovements Artists’ Collective
Dance & Music
I am part of MetaMovements (MM, founded by Anara Frank) an international artists’ collective with dance/music family in Boston and across the Caribbean.
Cultural exchange that supports artists living and working in their art is critical - to that end I traveled to Cuba with MM a number of times in 2024-25 to study with members of the artists’ collective in Havana. In 1/25 I completed an intensive course in Cuban Modern dance (Técnica) with my mentor Maestro Tomás Guilarte.
Everyone is a dancer! Bringing movement to community and making it as accessible as possible is part of why I dance. I collaborate with MM as a Dance Ambassador, working with Anara and MM co-director Eli Pabon, supporting largely free community-based programming across the city of Boston and surroundings, as well as through MM workshops and private events. This includes helping with instruction and programming at events such as our city-wide Salsa In The Park series and partnership with Silent Rhythms inclusive dance program. My goal is to get everyone who wants to move onto the dancefloor, whatever their experience, ability, or age.
Most recently I have been studying dance and Afro-Cuban music with our visiting artist-in-residence, Javier Jeffer Cumbrera from the MM team in Havana. I performed alongside Javier and other members of the collective, dancing and playing live music for MM workshops.
Find more information about MetaMovement’s programing here, and read more about my early journey with MM here.
BOMBAntillana
One of the oldest and most enduring cultural practices of Borikén (Puerto Rico), Bomba is resistance, cultural preservation, community, and self-expression: an expression of deep collective healing. I am a member of the BOMBAntillana community collective, founded by Eli Pabon. In our intergenerational community group I dance, sing and play traditional percussion, exploring all the components that make up this art.
Last year highlights included being invited to open performances at the Embrace José Massó festival in downtown Boston, and offering Bomba By The Sea through the Save The Harbor/Save The Bay Better Beaches grant program.
Visual Arts
The Prayer Flag Project birthed a visual arts component to my practice. As a psychologist I have always valued the trust of holding client’s words, their inner voices. The idea of treating these words with care, adorning them and offering them to the elements came from an exploration of my own cultural background and manifested in this community art activation. I have developed a series of art prints from this project which showcase participants’ words as well as natural elements I have grown, foraged or sourced from local BIPOC growers and farms.
Prints are available for a $5 minimum suggested donation per print. Please contact me to order.
You can also commission your own prints, featuring your words and natural elements that amplify their message. Get in touch! I would love to help support your vision and create your own uniquely healing artwork.
Writing
I had the honor and pleasure of being a contributing author in Crush Life Manifesto: Ancient Luxuries. A publication from a beloved friend and collaborator, Daniele Coates-Connor, the Manifesto is a visionary exploration of relationships, creativity and possibility. Danielle and I have been in peer support and deepening in creative connection. In this edition of the Manifesto I was excited to share a piece and practice on shame.
