Creative Foundations
Uncover Insight and Ideas for Your Writing, Your Projects and Your Path.
Maybe you’ve been circling an idea, sensing a new direction, navigating a transition, or feeling stuck in a creative project that isn’t revealing its deeper purpose. Maybe you know something meaningful is there, but it hasn’t yet found its shape.
Creative Foundations offers a way of working with ideas that helps you access the source of the stories you might want to tell. These ideas can become the foundation for whatever you hope to create.
This is the work beneath the work.
Drawn from decades of experience with the creative process and facilitating experiences, these practices offer a way to listen to what is emerging, gather the threads of ideas, and uncover the stories and themes that are calling for attention.
You don’t need to be a “creative person” to benefit from this approach. You just need curiosity, openness, and a willingness to explore— qualities which will often lead you to where the most productive and meaningful creative journeys begin.
Ways to Work Together
1:1 Mentoring
Creative Foundations — Full Day or Monthly
For people ready to uncover stories, themes, ideas, and direction.
Choose the Full Day VIP Intensive if you want an immersive day to gather what you have and create a clear vision for next steps. Choose Monthly Mentoring if you want ongoing support with time for integration between sessions.
Clarity Compass Session — 90 Minutes
A focused session for clarity, re-orientation, and grounded next steps. Choose this session when you're feeling stuck, uncertain, navigating a shift, or need a clear next step forward.
We can begin this mentoring work anytime.
Questions? Ready to begin? Get in touch →
Group Classes and Retreats
Many of the Creative Foundations practices are offered during small group classes and retreats. Join the mailing list to hear when enrollment opens. →
Clarity Compass Session
90 Minutes | Zoom | $275
If you are at a crossroads and holding competing priorities, or are not sure of your next steps in your life or work, this session can offer a powerful way to gain perspective, clarity, and insight.
Through a sequence of four guided questions and deep listening, Erica offers a structured process for gaining perspective, discernment, and a clearer sense of what comes next.
Includes:
✓ reflective pre-session questions
✓ 90-minute private Zoom session
✓ personalized written summary
✓ Clarity Compass Map delivered within 48 hours
Questions? Book a Discovery Call or send an email →
“I am stunned at the synchronicities that have happened since receiving Erica’s support. Before our session, I had multiple directions and choices to make. The Mini-Compass helped me focus my energy where I feel most alive, identify simple steps forward, and recognize what I was ready to release. The ripple effects have been profound. — K.L.
Creative Foundations- Full Day
VIP Intensive
6 hours | Zoom or in person | $1,250
A focused immersive experience for people who are seeking the stories, themes, or direction that will give it their ideas shape.
This intensive can help you discover stories, themes, and ideas worth developing. Clarify the direction of a project, creative practice, or transition in your work.
Through a customized sequence of projects and reflections, explore the landscape of your ideas and questions and identify meaningful material that can serve as the foundation of your creative work. and experiences. Together we’ll uncover patterns, identify the strongest threads, and create a clearer understanding of what needs to happen next.
Includes:
✓ Pre-session reflective guide
✓ Six-hour customized private intensive
✓ Strategic integration and next-step planning
Available online or at your location. Also available at my office in Western Massachusetts.
Questions? Book a Discovery Call or send an email →
“Having Erica as my grad school mentor provided a welcoming and powerful space to put words to my values and vision as an artist. We defined the themes I’m exploring, integrated creative practices into daily life, and began a project rooted in that clarity. Erica listens for the spirit of a work in a way that is rare, and she brings a deep well of knowledge I soaked up like a sponge.”
— Kelly, MFA Student, (California Institute of Integral Studies), Somatic Therapist
Creative Foundations-Monthly Format
1:1 Monthly Program | $600 per month
Monthly guidance for people who want to grow through ongoing support with time for integration and implementation. This is where insights become projects, ideas become direction, and meaningful themes have space to develop over time.
Explore stories, themes, and possibilities in greater depth and shape discoveries into meaningful work through personalized feedback and support
Includes:
✓ 30-minute kickoff session
✓Two 60-minute mentoring sessions each month
✓Clear next steps after each session
✓Email support and accountability between sessions
Questions? Book a Discovery Call or send an email →
How the Work Unfolds
The process is structured but spacious, designed to help meaningful material surface and take shape.
Through a sequence of guided and sequenced experiences, you’ll gain insight into patterns, themes, and questions, leading us to the strongest threads of ideas and insights as they emerge. What emerges can become the foundations for the work ahead.
Our work together may draw on reflective writing and inquiry, narrative mapping, symbolic and visual meaning-making, integrative practices, and strategic planning.
Creative Foundations Is for You If:
✓ You are circling ideas, stories, themes, or possibilities that need space to emerge
✓ You want to reconnect with creative direction, voice, or deeper purpose
✓ You need dedicated space, accountability, and trusted guidance
You Can Come Away With :
✓ Greater thematic clarity
✓ Emerging story threads and meaningful material
✓ Stronger connection to voice and creative directon
✓ Deeper insight into what matters now
✓ Renewed creative momentum
✓ Clearer next steps and a realistic plan forward
Each session is customized to meet you where you are, and with your goals in mind.
“Of all the coaches, therapists, or guides I’ve worked with, no one has ever given me such a clear, practical summary of my strengths and next steps. Erica listens deeply and reflects with clarity and care. The Mini-Compass Map is unlike anything I’ve experienced. If there was one word to describe it, it would be AWESOME!”
— Janice Kelly- Author, Naturalist, Interpreter
About This Approach
Everything I have ever created has come from this process — awareness, reflection, integration, and outcome. Without this inner work, I would not have been able to produce what I have made: multiple recordings, published articles, training manuals, and years of writing. I also would not have been able to make the pivots I have — from touring songwriter to conservation advocate to writing mentor and interpretive trainer.
None of my work has followed a straight line. What made the difference was inner discernment and the outer support of trusted guides and mentors along the way.
The practices I bring to Creative Foundations are the very same ones I still use today — the ones I return to whenever I need to find my way back to myself and uncover what wants to be expressed next. They have become central to how I listen and create, and to how I help others do the same.
This work is grounded in decades of experience helping people bring meaningful ideas, projects, and next steps into clearer form across creative and professional terrain, and through the real challenges of holding meaningful work alongside responsibility, uncertainty, and change.
"I have not written this much or as easily in my 30+ years in academia. The classes are supportive and keep us actively writing, but also allow us to go at our own pace." — Jeanne Stanley, Ph.D., Psychologist
Interested in Working Together?
Start with a Conversation
If you're wondering whether this approach is the right fit, the best next step is a short conversation. We can talk about your writing, your process, and your challenges. Just this free conversation can often bring shifts, clarity, and insights.
Book a Discovery Call→
Other Ways to Experience Creative Foundations
These same practices are often woven into classes, workshops, retreats, and community programs.
Learn about upcoming opportunities. Join the mailing list →