How the Spirit of Creativity Moves Me By Catherine Herrera

 When I was a young artist, still unfamiliar with this energy called Creativity, after each new creation, I wondered, will Creativity show up again?  Is it something I can will up on my own? What brings it forth, what pushes it away? Dipping into the obscurity of the darkroom as a sweat lodge, where I communicated with Creativity, offering my dedication to perfect tone and the full Ansel Adams Zone.  
 
Photography was the first of those images pinned to the cork board in my grandparents kitchen, stories of loved ones and where they were now. My Grandpa's travel photos and my Dad's first published photos were the first breadcrumbs on my path. Before there was a camera, I used my fingers to frame those images I would have taken. 
 
Creativity returned. Again. And, again. I learned to collaborate with the energy, to offer proper deference and respect. I was no idiot. I knew I had no control over Creativity. Patiently, Creativity showed me how we could work together to create magic. 
 
Successfully transmitting the Creative energy from artist to another human being is the first sign one might be able to truly honor Creativity. Becoming the vessel of creative exchange just the first step, still higher up, connecting universal feeling and experience and impacting positively another life, recognizing the energy flows back to the artist, for I know few  greater joys than witnessing Creative energy successfully gifted and received. Promise made, Promise Kept. 
 
That is the artist I dream to be. 
 
The first time I was contacted about a portrait I took as a newspaper photographer, the money offered for doing the job seemed like best in the world. Invitations to exhibit, invitations to participate. A professional artist - this is all I ever wanted to be. Inspired by  women artists I saw making art.  If I worked hard, I hoped the same would be for me.
 
Little did I know, it was not the working hard that would be so difficult. 
 
Chips fell off Creativity, hammered out on myself, internalized statements said outside and apart from my creative being. Definitions of women. Definitions of race. Definitions of class. 'People like us don't become artists.' 
 
I bought my first video camera in secret. 
'Wasteful. Who do you think you are?'
I hid those reproaches inside – were they right? Who did I think I was? 
 
I continued. I expanded skills, I opened up new creative mediums, I walked a step forward, despite steps back, celebrated each paso as evidence of progress, even when my bank account said zero go. 
 
I applied, I applied, I applied, I applied, I applied. I was rejected. I was strong. Apply again. Again rejected. Rejected again. 
 
'See. Told you so. Bum.' 
 
Grants. Commissions. Exhibits. Happiest moments in my life - save those personal moments for which, without, none of it matters.
 
'Congratulations! I always knew you could.' 
 
Then, everything changed. A blood draw. Ruined nerve in my right arm traveled to my spine, affecting my legs. 
 
I was a mom. Our lives changed.   
 
Creativity came to the door. Let's go. 
'Are you crazy?,' I said. 
No. Let's go. 
Creativity carried me on its shoulders, told me there was a reason to make it through the worst moments and experiences, in fact, Creativity told me to document , draw, write, photograph. Move it! 
 
Soon, and before I knew it, Creativity and I were walking forward once again. Yes. I had to change. Yes. I had to dig deeper. Yes. I had to see with fresh vision. 
 
A new friend asked if I'd photograph her book cover. She and her husband shared with me the wisdom they gained – together, encouraging me to hold on tightly to everything I could still do after a life-altering disability. No longer out in the streets documenting, I began working in a studio. Working with authors, even trying photojournalism again. No. Not like before, but the Creativity was enough, and I did my best.
 
I grew to appreciate Creativity in a new way.  Creativity – and the love, empathy, kindness of family and friends – kept me alive through some of the most challenging times of my and our lives. 
 
Not just the creativity as creative on commission, but in the ways creativity made it possible to process some of the most difficult personal reckoning. 
 
I was obsessed with knowing my family genealogy. A reaction to trauma, reduced to paper, like pushing a wheel endless around in circles. I spent a lifetime seeking out who I was so I could know where I am going. There is a saying common to many native and indigenous peoples – 'you can not know where you are going unless you know where you are from.' 
 
I needed answers to our native/indigenous genealogy for the family, but I needed the answers for myself, and my next generations, to stop this cycle, to be the generation of change our ancestors saw. 
 
Creativity walked with me on that journey, picking up the search from my grandfather, a destination he sought but but never found. Was I doomed to never know? 
 
'Who are you to tell this story? Where is your proof? What is your percentage?' 
 
Tracing Maria, Indian, from the 1852 census, finding my great great great grandpa born in San Francisco in 1857, and learning how my family intermarried and were family to members of the Rumsen, Esselen, Mutsun Ohlone community, researching the story of our family and stories of being Ohlone became my obsession creatively too. 
 
Then, others told me they had similar experiences, and Creativity put up a mirror. I began making movies about my family and my journey, broadening out to make movies and art no longer just about me or my family;  with permission and participation of Ohlone community members, sacred sites, and the mission practice of using wooden dolls as punishment. 
 
Creativity made it possible to heal, to grieve for all that I lost, pushing me to learn all that I had not been taught. 
 
I did not withdraw the search for my relatives. New documents, new DNA. These were not just rumors and myths but the result of colonization, opening my eyes to the ways today the same wheel is spinning round and round. 
 
Creativity and I looking forward to the next chapter, picking up projects put on hold, a documentary about Martins Beach, finishing a book about my journey tracing both sides of my family's native genealogy and stories, and developing a t.v. series. Creativity and I asking, how can we add to the healing, more so now in these days and times.
 
Trauma is funny that way, making it hard to move at the times when most needed. 
 
Creativity roused me awake, grabbed me by the hand, 'time to move forward,' and off we go, down a new path, up a different street, around the same circle, for a lifetime – as long as Creativity returns for another dance.

Bio - Catherine Herrera

Catherine Herrera is a filmmaker, photographer, public performance and installation artist who has been invited to publish her writing and poetry in several publications: poem in Native News of California, anthology essay for Talking to Goddess, Peaceful Visions from Many Traditions, edited by D’vorah Green; essay for both issues of Cybertestimonials: One Wound for Another, 2001/2006, an anthology of Latino writers contributing reflections on five years after 9-11. Catherine has studied scriptwriting with Sundance Collab and completed her second short film script, 'Medicine,' and with Hedgebrook in completing her first draft of 'Homebound by Sea.' In 2021, Catherine Herrera has received funding and support for her current feature documentary, 'Martins Beach,' and has been invited for a 360-degree VR projection dome installation commission by Montalvo Arts Center.
View Catherine Herrera's photography and artwork here: www.catherineherreraphotography.com
VOD of Catherine Herrera's Films: www.vimeo.com/flordemielfilms
Join the journey of 'Martins Beach' as a Patreon subscriber!: https://www.patreon.com/catherineherrera