“I believe that in realising you are capable of undergoing change, you can sculpt it into a form of power.”

“We were taught how to find beauty, create it out of something or nothing; cherish it; care for it. Teach someone else how to do it; share it.”

For Rachel Rutt, the pursuit of creative expression began early, fostered in a childhood spent in a commune in rural Japan. “The way objects were seen and used was stressed. Being thrown around a lot, growing up, has allowed me to be at peace with many surprises within myself,” she explains. “It opened me to understand that I didn’t have to be defined by one career, just as I am not defined by any one of my experiences.”

For Rutt, the origin of creativity is always “problem solving”, but the manifestation of the expression is “a form of relief, exclusively for the spirit ... Like meditation, it’s the point where you leave yourself (your idea of self) at the door and walk through the threshold into the realm of execution. Where the idea reigns supreme.” It doesn’t always have to be productive, either, Rutt explains. “I feel the most at peace because I have no fear and no need for outcome. I can throw it away in the end if I want to and feel just as good as if I’d painted the Mona Lisa.”

“[What's most important to me is] being able to learn and keep changing. Being able to react to the ideas inside of myself with honesty and love: for myself, the people in my life, and also those others who it might touch.”