The Heretic’s Studio
Making as an Act of Resistance
Starts Oct. 1st. Sliding scale available.
A Question
When was the last time you created something that frightened you?
Not because it was ambitious. Not because you worried it wouldn't succeed.
But because it was true, and truth has consequences.
When was the last time you made something not to be seen, but because silence would've been a betrayal?
If you can't remember, you're in the right place.
If you've never felt that, this isn't for you.
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They Want You Complicit
The world has a plan for your creativity.
Make it consumable. Make it shareable. Make it monetizable.
Write for the algorithm. Paint for the market. Compose for the playlist.
Optimize your output. Build your brand. Find your niche.
Turn your sacred impulse into a side hustle.
Turn your witness into content.
Most artists accept this bargain without knowing they've made one.
They learn to ask: Will this get engagement? Will this sell? Will they like it?
Instead of: Is this true? Does this serve what's real? Am I listening or performing?
They become very good at making what works.
And quietly, something dies.
Not their talent. Their fidelity.
Fidelity to the original impulse. To the tremor that called them to make in the first place. To the possibility that art might be something other than self-expression or commodity.
If you're reading this and feeling anger, good.
If you're reading this and feeling grief, you're close.
If you're reading this and thinking "but I need to make a living", this probably isn't for you yet.
Not because survival doesn't matter.
But because what we're talking about here exists in a different order entirely.
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What They Took
There was a time when artists were not creators but receivers.
The Islamic calligrapher did not "express themselves" through script. They made the divine word visible through disciplined attention.
The icon painter fasted for days before touching gold leaf. Not for piety points. Because they understood: to make an icon is to participate in revelation.
The poet in exile wrote not for publication but because silence would have been complicity with the regime.
The jazz musician didn't improvise to showcase skill. They channeled something that moved through them, not from them.
Making was not self-expression. It was witness. Service. Prayer.
Then something fractured.
Art became individualism. Genius became brand. Beauty became aesthetic.
The Romantic era told us artists were special, chosen vessels of inspiration.
Capitalism told us everything, including our gifts, must be monetized.
Social media told us validation is measured in numbers.
Now most of us don't know the difference between making and performing.
We think we're creating when we're curating.
We think we're serving beauty when we're chasing approval.
We think we're artists when we're content producers with delusions of depth.
And we wonder why the work feels hollow.
Not all of it. But enough. The piece that performs well but leaves you empty. The project that gets praise but doesn't feel true. The growing sense that you're making for something instead of from something.
If this doesn't describe you, if you're genuinely satisfied making for the market, building your audience, optimizing your creative practice, you should leave now.
Seriously. There are excellent courses for that. This is not one of them.
But if you feel the hollow, if you sense you've been slowly, quietly trained away from what you once knew:
Stay.
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The Heresy
Here's what we believe. What we're building this gathering around.
Art is not self-expression.
It's participation in something that exceeds the self.
The artist is not a genius.
The artist is a vessel. A servant. A witness to what wants to be made.
Beauty is not subjective.
It's a form of knowledge: direct, immediate, unmediated by concepts.
Attention is prayer.
Not metaphorically. Literally. Sustained, reverent attention is how the unseen becomes visible.
Sincerity is rebellion.
In a world optimized for performance, to make something true, without regard for how it will be received, is an act of defiance.
This is heresy in our current moment.
The culture tells you: monetize your gifts, build your brand, express your unique voice.
We tell you: empty yourself, listen deeper, serve what's real.
The culture tells you: your art is valuable because it's yours.
We tell you: your art is sacred when it's true, when it testifies to something beyond you.
The culture tells you: make what people want.
We tell you: make what refuses to lie.
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Who This Is For (And Who It Isn't)
Let's be very clear.
✅This gathering is for✅
Writers who sense that language is older than their opinions, that words, handled rightly, can reveal what thinking cannot reach.
Painters who know that color is not decoration but a way of seeing, that the canvas is not where you express yourself but where something expresses itself through you.
Musicians who feel that sound is not entertainment but invocation, that rhythm and melody can open what the rational mind keeps closed.
Poets who've learned that the best lines arrive uninvited, and that your job is not to be clever but to get out of the way.
Photographers who understand that the image is not captured but received, that light itself is teaching if you know how to listen.
Makers of any kind who suspect that the ache to create is not personal ambition but a call from something that wants to become visible through your hands.
Anyone who's tired of performing.
Anyone who's done lying through their work.
Anyone who senses that creativity, at its origin, is not about you. It's about fidelity to what's real.
❌This gathering is NOT for❌
People looking for techniques to improve their craft. (There are great workshops for that. This isn't one.)
People seeking validation, praise, or a community where everyone blindly cheers each other on. (We'll witness you, but we won't flatter you.)
People who want to "unlock their creative potential" or "build a sustainable creative practice." (Those are real needs. This gathering doesn't address them.)
People who believe art is fundamentally about self-expression and that sincerity is just one aesthetic choice among many.
People who need certainty, formulas, or a teacher who promises outcomes.
People who aren't willing to sit with the possibility that everything they've been taught about creativity might be part of the problem.
If you're offended by any of this, good. Leave now. Seriously.
If you're intrigued but uncomfortable, if something in you is resisting but you can't stop reading:
You're in the right place.
What Happens in Six Weeks
This is not a course. It's more of a temporary monastery.
For six weeks, a few of us gather to practice what the Sufis called tajalli: the continual unveiling of the divine through form.
Whether you write, paint, compose, sculpt, photograph, or work in any other medium, we're here to answer one question:
What does it mean to make not from ego, but from fidelity?
We won't teach you how to be a better writer, painter, or musician.
We'll investigate what it means to serve writing, painting, music: to let your work be an act of testimony rather than self-promotion.
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The Breakdown
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We start by naming what broke.
When did art become content? When did making become performing? When did you start asking "Will they like this?" instead of "Is this true?"
We'll look at historical moments when this shift happened, and we'll examine, honestly, where it's happened in your own work.
No bypassing. No spiritual platitudes. Just clear seeing.
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Our culture is engineered for noise, distraction, and constant output, to truly listen is revolutionary.
This week we practice receptivity. Not as passivity, but as a spiritual posture.
Writers: What if you waited for the line instead of forcing it?
Painters: What if you let the color choose you?
Musicians: What if the melody arrived instead of being composed?We'll study examples from mystical traditions: how Sufi poets "received" their verses, how icon painters prepared through fasting and silence, how Indigenous artists understand themselves as channels, not creators.
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You are not here to express yourself.
You are here to bear witness to what wants to be made through you.
This is the hardest teaching. It requires you to release the myth of creative genius: the idea that you are the source.
You're not the source. You're the servant.
The poet serves language.
The painter serves color and form.
The musician serves sound.Your job is fidelity. To what you've seen, felt, heard: to what is real and refuses to be falsified.
We'll study artists who understood this: Rumi, who wrote "Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen" but let the Divine speak. Rothko, who painted not emotion but the sublime. John Coltrane, who called his music "prayer."
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Your hands know what your mind has forgotten.
The breath knows the rhythm of the line before you write it.
The body knows the color before the mind names it.
The heart knows the melody before the ear hears it.This week we work with the body, not despite it.
Repetition as ritual. Process as prayer. The sacredness of showing up daily: not to produce, but to practice.
We'll explore Sufi dhikr (repetition as remembrance), Christian hesychasm (prayer of the heart), Japanese wabi-sabi (beauty in imperfection through repeated practice).
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What if your art didn't seek approval?
What if it simply stood as truth, indifferent to reception?This is the art of resistance.
Not protest art (though it can be). Not political art (though it might become that).
But art that refuses to lie.
Art that doesn't flatter, doesn't comfort, doesn't perform.
Art that serves beauty, and beauty, as Simone Weil taught, is "the supreme mystery."We'll study:
• Poets who wrote in exile (Mandelstam, Akhmatova)
• Musicians who played forbidden songs (the jazz musicians under Jim Crow, the underground composers in Soviet Russia)
• Painters who refused commissions that required them to lie (Caravaggio, Goya) -
The gathering ends. The practice doesn't.
How do you carry this into the rest of your life?
How do you live as a sacred maker in a world that wants you complicit?
How do you create with fidelity when bills must be paid, when visibility matters, when you're tired?We'll talk practically: not as formulas, but as ongoing questions.
And we'll ask: What is the work asking of you now?
Not what you want to make.
Not what will succeed.
What refuses to stay silent?
What You Receive
✅Six live gatherings (90 minutes each, Wednesdays 7pm ET)
Teaching. Inquiry. Silence. Ritual.
All recorded: lifetime access.
✅Daily practices (15 minutes)
Adapted to your medium. Short. Potent.
Designed not to add to your to-do list but to reorient your attention.
✅Curated transmissions
Readings from Sufi mystics, Christian contemplatives, Buddhist teachers, Indigenous wisdom-keepers.
Images from artists who refused the market.
Sounds from musicians who played for God, not audiences.
Not as inspiration. As companionship.
✅Private circle
A quiet space (Skool or similar) for sharing, questioning, witnessing.
This continues after the six weeks: because the practice doesn't end when the program does.
✅Lifetime access
All recordings. All materials. All practices.
You can return to this again and again.
The Investment
$497
for six weeks
Yes, it's more than most courses.
That's intentional.
This price filters. It asks: Are you serious?
Not about whether you can afford it (we'll address that below).
But about whether you're willing to invest in work that has no guaranteed outcome, no marketable skill, no promise that your art will "improve."
What you'll get is a shift in posture.
From performing to witnessing.
From ego to fidelity.
From making what works to making what's true.
If that's not worth $497 to you, this isn't your gathering.
Sliding scale: $297-$497
Choose what's honest for your financial reality. No judgment. No questions asked.
Scholarship spots: Three full scholarships
Reserved for BIPOC artists, Indigenous makers, and those experiencing financial hardship.
Limited to 20 participants.
Not to create scarcity. To create a solid structure.
Depth requires intimacy. Intimacy requires bounds.
When we reach 20, the gate closes.
The Guarantee (Or Why There Isn't One)
We won't promise your art will improve.
We won't promise you'll "find your voice."
We won't promise transformation, breakthrough, or clarity.
We can promise this:
If you show up—truly show up—something will shift in how you relate to your work.
Not because we’re good teachers.
Because fidelity, once tasted, changes you.
You can't unknow what you remember.
That said: If you complete all six sessions and the daily practices, and you feel this was a waste of your time: email us. We'll refund you in full.
No questions. No hard feelings.
But understand: this is not a satisfaction guarantee.
It's a seriousness guarantee.
If you show up seriously and get nothing: that's on us.
If you half-ass it and complain: that's on you.
Why This Matters
This is the pilot offering of The Heretic's Studio.
Which means: you're not joining something established. You're helping birth it.
The first twenty participants will experience this gathering in its rawest, most potent form. Before it's refined. Before it's polished. Before it's safe.
You'll have direct influence on what this becomes.
Your feedback will shape future gatherings.
Your presence will set the tone for everyone who comes after.
The first circle is always the most intimate.
The first fire is always the hottest.
Later offerings will be more refined.
This one will be more alive.
If you're someone who waits for proof, for reviews, for guarantees—wait.
But if you're someone who knows that the most transformative experiences happen at the edges, in the forming, in the uncertain—
This is your moment.
Join The Circle
Twenty makers.
Six weeks.
One quiet rebellion.