Pain In The Arts

There's a Chinaberry tree on our nature strip, a Lilac in the back corner and an underlying grief knowing 'acorn' is being dropped from the Oxford Junior Dictionary to make room for 'chatroom.'Words are disappearing and not just the weird ones. Nature words, specifically. Researchers are calling it an 'extinction of experience', a growing cultural distance between us and the world around us.This week we talk about that loss, what it costs us and what it might mean to rewild our imaginations.Plus: we announce a brand new spin-off series: Word You Never Heard, drawn from John Koenig's Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a collection of invented words for feelings that didn't have a name...until now.You might want to listen if:• You've walked past the same tree for years and realised you have no idea what it's called• You're curious what Breallyn and Lyndon are up to with their new series, Word You Never Heard

What does it actually take to walk away from a career that pays well but costs you almost everything?This week we're joined in the studio by Bill Bate, a long-time listener who has quietly lived one of the more interesting creative detours we've heard in a while. Twenty years in the fly-in, fly-out oil and gas industry. A slow-burning disquiet. And on the other side of all of it: a photography degree, a music festival in regional Victoria, and a brass fountain pen he's carried every day since 2010.We talk about what it costs to stay too long in the wrong life, how creative people find each other and why Bill thought the only real solution to missing a creative community was to go and build one himself.You might want to listen if:• You've spent years doing work that pays but doesn't quite fit and you want to get out, like yesterday• You've been thinking about starting something - a group, an event, a regular gathering and you feel time is closing in• You're at the stage of life where you've stopped trying to name what you are and you just want to live creativelyFind Bill at these links:Clear Air Creative InstagramClear Air Creative WebsiteBill on Instagram

This week I'm bringing a question that reared it's head again. It's the idea that suffering is the source of our best art. And the fear that goes with it - the reluctance to heal, to process and to move on - in case our edge goes with it.Because if it's true that the best work comes from the most painful places, what happens if you stop hurting? What if healing makes you lose the thing that made the work matter?It's a conversation about the tortured artist myth.Why it's persisted for centuries, what neuroscience actually tells us about trauma and creativity and whether it's possible to park the painful material somewhere you can still reach it, without having to live there to access it.Lyndon does his best to be supportive and understanding, but unfortunately gives-in to his usual intrusive thoughts!And we both ponder whether artists can actually afford therapy.You might want to listen if:• You wonder whether healing and creative legitimacy can coexist, or whether you have to choose• You've caught yourself thinking that an artist with an easy life might have nothing real to say

What do you actually feel when someone in your creative community gets the gig, the grant, or the recognition you wanted? And why do admiration and envy so often arrive in the same breath?In this re-released favourite from the archives, we take a closer look at creative envy. That tricky mix of admiration, aspiration, and longing that can surface when you watch peers succeed. Discover some ideas on how to stop comparison from stalling your progress, reframe jealousy, and transform those complex feelings into fuel for your own art.There's a detour through Greek mythology, a lost song Lyndon found on Dropbox 12 years after writing it, and a frank conversation about gatekeeping in the Australian arts scene - and why healthy competition requires a healthy environment to exist in.You might want to listen if:• You've ever sat in the audience at a book launch, a gig, or a gallery opening and felt equal parts inspired and deflated• You want to understand why aspiration can be a roadmap rather than a reminder of inadequacyNote: We are re-sharing this popular episode while recovering from a family illness. Original air date: September 2, 2025.

Who do you actually think of when you feel like giving up on your creative work?Not some aspirational figure pulled from a shelf, but the person who shows up in your mind, unbidden, when things feel too hard or too quiet or not enough.This week, I brought the topic and Breallyn only found out after the recording had begun. The question I asked sent each of us somewhere quite different: I thought of musicians whose lives and music became inseparable, precisely because of past trauma and adversity. Sam Baker, who rebuilt his career after a terrorist bombing left him with hearing loss and a mangled hand; Nathan Cavalieri, the guitar prodigy who found himself unable to get on stage due to crippling anxiety. Breallyn went somewhere quieter, to Melbourne writers with full lives and extraordinary creative output, and ultimately, to someone closer to home.Oh, and we also introduce you to our newest character, The Petty Postie! You might want to listen if:• You've ever found yourself thinking about another artist when you needed to get back to your own work• You've had to renegotiate what success looks like: or you're in the middle of doing that right now• You've wondered whether the hardest parts of your life are getting in the way of your art, or quietly shaping itSam Baker WebsiteNathan Cavaleri WebsiteRyan Adams Official

What does it mean when your creative life goes quiet, when nothing's moving, nothing's landing, and the work that used to flow just... doesn't?Brea brought this concept to the table and it turned out to be quite fitting for the moment. Sitting in the studio late on a cold, winter's night with a couple of gin and tonics, I warmed up to this idea of 'creative winter'.In this episode, Brea talks about the season of dormancy. The stillness that feels like stagnation, the brutal pruning of projects or habits that can feel like loss, and the subterranean root growth you can’t see, but makes the next season possible.Put your headphones on if:Your work has stalled - and you're agonising over whether it's just a temporary season or a sign to pack it all in.You're suffering from 'season envy' - watching someone else hit their glorious creative summer while you're sitting in the dark, freezing.You know something needs to be pruned - a project, an old commitment, a bad habit. But you’ve been hanging onto it out of sentiment or guilt.You need permission to go dark for a bit