Monika's Story: Reconnecting with Art Through The Pack’s ARC
How Pack member Monika found purpose and momentum through the Artist Rebirth Cycle.
Monika Norwid's introduction to The Pack’s Artist Rebirth Cycle came with a little push from a friend—and what followed was a transformative experience. From questioning her place in the art world to finding her flow within a traveling “popup studio,” Monika’s time in ARC taught her how community and structure can reignite the artist within. After completing two cycles of ARC, she now creates with more clarity, confidence, and commitment than ever before. Read on for a peek into Monika's studio practice and her inspiring post-ARC reflections.
Are you considering the Artist Rebirth Cycle? It's not too late to sign up! The next course begins this week! To register, visit thepack.art or email sarah@tothepack.com
The Pack: How did you find out about The Pack, and why did you decide to enroll in the Artist Rebirth Cycle?
MN: I was tricked into taking the course. My friend Maryanne, who had already signed up, said that they needed one more person to fill the course. She knew I was a secret painter. She wanted to out me. I reflexively said no; I was busy, I was between jobs. “I’ll front you the money, it’s not that much!” Jeez, now she was using generosity to guilt me into it? Low blow. Definitely not taking the bait.
I think a lot of people who consider making art (whether again or for the first time) are profoundly afraid and even ashamed to act on that hunch. They mock themselves or talk themselves out of it. They think it’s vain: Who am I to think I can make art? They fear it’s indulgent: How dare I take out time to do this thing that no one needs or asked for? Returning artists ridicule their desire as delusional – a “false” hope that surely would have been realized by now if they really were meant to make it as an artist.
The truth is, I’ve always made art. Sometimes it was literal works on canvas or paper. Other times it was inadvertent art: I would smuggle those impulses into “real” or “useful” jobs like magazine editing or fashion or cinematography or filmmaking or interior design or tutoring kids or restaurant work. I made art in every single way it’s possible to make art without calling it art.
But that part about the course needing one more person got my attention and wouldn’t let me go. Even after I found out the course no longer needed me, and was actually almost full, the idea that me saying yes to art could contribute something, could fill a void, could keep people together – it rang true in a way that I couldn’t shake. So, to my own surprise, I said yes. And I’ve been saying yes to art ever since. Good trick, Maryanne!
You were part of ARC’s inaugural year in 2023, and joined again for a second cycle in 2024. How would you describe your experience as a member of ARC over the past two years?
MN: Despite being an online course, it had a surprisingly grounding effect on my life during an especially rootless time when I was traveling constantly. The weekly sessions brought my time into clear focus, gave me goals and momentum for my practice, and kept me stimulated and passionate about an activity for which I didn’t have any external incentives like a career path or financial rewards. I had to invent a “popup studio” to continue working despite the location changes, which turned out to be not only doable, but actually beneficial to my practice. This constraint became the forcing function I needed to focus my ideas. It required me to be highly selective and decisive about what I chose to lug around. I had to streamline my process, so that packing and unpacking was simple, setting up was easy, and I could effectively and efficiently protect each new space from the usual messes and studio accidents. Today, I have a stable studio space but that process has remained with me, as it’s the most efficient and fastest way for me to get my ideas into action.
The other aspect that was grounding was the group itself. Because the course goes deep, in terms of psychology and personal journey, we all share and get to know each other really well. The weekly frequency over nine months makes the sessions almost tantric, and we kind of fall into a trance of intimacy as soon as we log in. I'm making it sound woo woo, but it’s actually not like that during the sessions. It’s only when I pull back and look at the overall effect, it really blows my mind that so many people remained so present and committed for that long. This kind of cohesiveness, in a group that really has nothing in common (even the art we all did was so different, our backgrounds with art were all over the place), is really a testament to the curriculum and to the teaching approach. It was feeding each of us individually, but we in turn would feed the group with our increasing commitment. So while I was traveling, I really looked forward to seeing everyone’s face, to seeing the latest work being presented. I was especially excited about progress – seeing someone hone in on their subject or refine their style or try something completely new. That was the biggest boost of energy for me, and got me jonesing to get going on my own work.
Sarah assigns us a partner for each trimester. The partner element was crucial to my sustaining my practice in general, but especially through a tough moment when I really wanted to quit. I was burned out from traveling and I had made some over the top plan to paint a whole series in a short period of time. But I couldn’t do it. I felt totally defeated and disappointed. My partner Vanessa and I had this call scheduled. I almost canceled on her but I did the call, and I told her I can’t do this anymore, I give up, it’s impossible. It’s just not the right time for me to be doing this class. She heard me out and then she suggested this tiny habit strategy that she’d heard about. Every day, you do one thing towards your goal that takes no more than 15 seconds, and you tell someone Yes, I did it (or No, if you didn’t), and nothing more. Vanessa and I started doing this together. Every day I’d do a tiny bit towards a painting, and text her a Y for Yes. And I would get a little Yes or Y back from her. (Occasionally we had our No’s, but it was mostly Yesses till the big show.) Of course, as intended by whoever came up with this game, the 15 seconds quickly turned into 15 minutes a day, then an hour, and soon I was back in my work flow. Those first 15 seconds are the hardest.
This is just one example of how the human connection – even remotely, across thousands of miles - is crucial to modeling and maintaining the inner connection we have with ourselves and our work.
How would you say your ARC experience changed your practice overall?
MN: ARC changed my practice and my appreciation of art in profound ways.
First, perspective. The curriculum works like a mirror (sometimes even an x-ray machine!), revealing blind spots and hidden potential in our practice. I always made art for myself: I worked only with “low stakes” materials and never shared my work with others. ARC’s exercises for introspection, reflection and communication helped me examine my ambivalence and see my practice with new eyes. The frequent opportunities to present my own work as well as to respond to others’ work freed me from unnecessary self-consciousness. Watching the group approach someone’s work from different angles, but always on its own terms, gave everyone a healthy perspective on their own work.
Second, structure. The course schedule creates an addictive momentum, with commitment, generosity and vulnerability all growing with each session. It was very rare that anyone missed class. The weekly sessions became a source of energy that would flow back into my daily practice. Seeing the effects of this structure on the quality of my work and on my general wellbeing made me create a dedicated space and schedule so that my art practice can remain a priority.
Third, community. Through ARC, I witnessed first hand what a transformative impact a creative community makes on individual output. The combined effects of regular feedback sessions, trimester partnering, weekly co-working, and thoughtful pairing of members with visiting artist-mentors all added up to a confidence in each of us that made all the difference in our work. Every member’s work got clearer, bolder and deeper the closer we became as a group. It was impressive just how big a role our group dynamic played in building our individual self-confidence.
What did you learn about yourself and your creative practice through this course? And what’s next?
MN: I learned that I have a lot to learn, and that this is a good thing as long as I actually am open about it and open to learning. (And that I got very very lucky in finding this course when I did. Timing is not nothing, in painting or otherwise.)
I came into the course with a lot of baked-in ideas about myself, as a person, as a political entity in the world, as an art practitioner, and about my creative process. I was astounded to realize just how malleable and uncooked most of those assumptions were, how untested, untasted, undigested. They were sketches of sketches of ideas that were just going in a loop in my head for a very long time, without me even once considering that this was not the only way, that this was not just “who I am.” That maybe this was not me, that it was just fear. I had been working in a very closed little circuit of a comfort zone for years, in a bubble basically. Without any input, or any risk-taking; no sharing, no absorbing, no real participation in the world. My creative process was set to self-soothing.
It wasn’t until my first talk with Sarah before the ARC class started that I realized how much more I could do if I just opened up to other people. She caught me off guard with her perceptive questions and follow up comments that basically felt like little windows opening up in my head. I could try stuff I didn’t know or understand. And someone would be there to receive it and tell me about it so we could figure it out together. I could try stuff that would be a surprise to me. That would reveal things about the world and about me I had never seen before.
I loved the format of the class from the get go. Sarah is very present and guides a bunch of VERY different people along a pretty precarious and complex trail. She’s introducing us to our own creative powers. She’s introducing us to the creative process as a power outside of us, as a collective effort in which we are all participating, to which we are all connected and belong. And then she’s asking us to take some steps that, especially at first, feel impossible. By the end of the course, what’s really special is seeing the people who had been the most stuck on their first ledge, the most terrified of the first steps, actually out there actively looking for their next impossible leap! This happened so many times, that I knew it wasn’t so much about the particular people but about the course itself. It has an undeniable effect on the shyest and most timid and self-deprecating people; it cuts through ambivalence and defensiveness, and somehow all this happens without any criticism or judgment, or any coddling or self-indulgent drama or cringy self-helpy therapy jargon. We’re all just trying to make an object, or a photograph, or a painting. One (what feels like life and death) step at a time. But the psychological leaps of faith and fireworks of self-awareness always happen in the work itself.
And this is precisely what makes the course so effective: there is no magic or pixie dust or genius or talent that will solve the problem for which art is the solution. Only work, sincere and committed and attentive and embarrassing and honest and courageous work solves the problem that has brought us to this class in the first place. By the time we have that solution in our hands, or on the wall in the Pack Gallery, or on our instagram, we have long forgotten what that problem inside of us was that brought us here. But we do know one thing, and we will use this knowledge for the rest of our lives: we worked it out. Alone and together. We worked it out and we somehow worked it into the world, where presumably it will continue to work on our behalf.
But what do I know; I have work to do.
