Gabrielle Ione Hickmon is Trying In Public
A candid interview on systems, trust and what it takes to resource a creative life. (Creative Brilliance 001)
Gabrielle Ione Hickmon (b. 1994) is a Black woman from a middle place—Ypsilanti, MI. Her lab is a place where clay, words, and herbs meet. She is interested in body memory, waiting rooms, placekeeping, circles, the Black Midwest, ecomemory, jazz, and ocular proof.
Those are the first three sentences of her official bio, which should tell you a lot about the kind of deeply intentional and inspiring artist she is. Nothing gets past
. Every moment is noticed, categorized and fused with intention. Every conversation is an opportunity for deeper connection.I’ve been connected with Gabrielle for the last three years, spending time with her nearly every week inside of The Study, the gathering place I run for artists and creative business owners. We are, as we joke in this interview, Internet coworkers. We’ve sat in Strategic Intuition Circles more times than I can count, holding space for one another through the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.
When I decided to start this Creative Brilliance interview series, Gabrielle was one of the first people I called. Not only because I know she has a breadth of wisdom to share, but because I was deeply interested to hear her thoughts on Trying In Public and what it means to practice a creative life in a place where other people might see.
In this long read, we cover the relationship between trying and trusting, how it feels to be an artist who also creates content, the systems she uses to organize her breadth of references and notes, and the process of becoming a working artist who travels across the world for residencies.
Enjoy.
LEXI MERRITT
Let’s start with a big question: What is your relationship to trying? When you think of about trying, what do you associate with that word?
GABRIELLE IONE HICKMON
What immediately comes up is doing your best in whatever the situation is and knowing that your best shifts and changes—based on how you're feeling, how you slept last night, if Mercury is in retrograde, what the skies are doing, how your body feels, whatever.
I think of trying as “showing up and making some kind of effort.” But also, more and more crucially, I've come to think of trying as “doing my part and then trusting.” Trusting that God, the universe, my Ancestors—whatever you want to call it—that they’ll also do their part.
I’ve been thinking about practicing less effort or least effort. How does that potentially still leave room for magic? Or for the same outcome with lower stress levels?
MERRITT
That’s beautiful. I ask because I'm looking for, I think, where that threshold is. There are a lot of cultural ideas about trying: “Trying too hard” or “Trying your best” or you know “Keep trying.” I've been listening for them now, so I hear these ideas everywhere. And then we have these dichotomies in movies and media, this dichotomy of somebody who tries versus somebody who succeeds.
HICKMON
I think it's interesting how people talk about trying. I mean, I guess even I fell into it right? “Trying and doing your best.” Hopefully with a bit more nuance than what popular culture is saying, but this notion of tying trying together with succeeding is interesting because you can also try and “fail.”
I don't think enough people talk about that or prepare you for that. We only say, “Well, if you try and you do your best, then it'll all come out okay.”
I do believe that everything is always working out for me. But that process of everything working out doesn't mean that everything I do, or effort toward will be a success or even something I want to continue doing. There are plenty of things I've tried and then stopped. But in the conversation today, it's more like, “Well, try. Just keep consistently efforting.”
I don't know how to say this, but it’s almost like: What is the right least amount of trying that I can do to still get the outcome I want? Not because trying is bad, but actually to move away from a scarcity mindset?
When I think about trying less, I think about trusting more. I've seen over the last year and a half or so since I've started working more with these ideas how that actually can be true. Releasing my grip, relaxing, trusting, letting go and trying a little bit less can achieve the same or better results than when I’m working so hard and getting so stressed.
Trying to go more with the flow of things is also how I'm thinking about being in relationship with trying right now.
MERRITT
Oh, yeah. No, that's great. That's where the book is going. It's trying, but it’s also conservation of effort, you know?
Trying versus trust. They’re presented sometimes as a dichotomy, like on my YouTube algorithm I'll see a lot of “You don't have to try so hard.” And it will be about the law of assumption or something. It's not even the methodology I’m interested in. It’s about the ideas that we’re putting on the word. So, I appreciate hearing yours.
On that same note, I know you mentioned that in the last year you've been working with trust more and I also know you've done a good amount of artist residencies and experiences.
Can you talk a little bit about how that happened for you? The places you've gone and how those opportunities came to be whether it was trying, trusting, or some combination of the two?
HICKMON
[Eating] I got the messiest food. If it was anyone else, I would care. But I'm just hanging out with Lexi.
MERRITT
We are Internet coworkers.
HICKMON
Period. I mean, I think it's definitely both: Trying and trusting.
It comes back to what I was saying about doing my part and then releasing something.
I saw this TikTok recently where someone was saying, essentially, “God, break protocol on my behalf.” That can obviously happen at any point in time, but I think in my life I've seen the most return on investment, or “return on my trust,” when I've also done my part and taken a step—whatever that step is.
It could be as small as looking up a residency or all the way through to submitting an application. But yeah, it's a mix of both.
I'm really treating that as as much of a non-negotiable as I can. I’m trusting that the work I’ve been given to do is sacred and matters. It was given to me for a reason and needs to exist in the world in whatever way it chooses to come at through any given moment.
Even before any of the trying or the effort—the “Well, what is my work about?” or “What do I put in my bio?”—there was a decision to say: I am a writer. I am a ceramic artist. I am an herbalist. That is part of who I am. That is what I want to do. That is what I want to offer to the world and the world wants me to offer that to it as well.
Before I could even try to make my silly little database for the residency that I want to apply to or ask people in my community for feedback on application materials, I had to decide to trust in who I am, the ways my gifts show up, and the ways I feel directed in this moment to use them and offer them back to folks.
MERRITT
Who are your models for that? When you think about what you secretly want to do all day, or even that affirmation of identity (“I am a writer”), did you have people in your life growing up who were artists? Or did you have any type of model as affirmation that this life is possible—that you can be an artist for a living?
HICKMON
It's kind of a two-part answer because I would say no? In terms of models of that growing up, there's no one that immediately comes to mind—no teachers or whatever else. But there were folks who I think back to as models of how I want to move through the world or how I want to present myself.
My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Donelan, she was the regalest woman, and just so clearly herself. All my other teachers throughout my life, and even just historically, people have shortened my name. They'll call me Gabby or Gabs or whatever. She never did. She always said, “No, your name is Gabrielle. Your name is beautiful and I'm going to call you that.” My decision to use my middle name in my practice now, I think, stems from that example from her.
And my drama teacher in elementary school, Mrs. Turner. She used to wear these sky-high turbans, all black, and big gold hoops or earrings with cowrie shells in it. I think the way she carried herself was probably the closest thing I had to an example of what an artist looked like or felt like growing up (so maybe I did have a model that I could be an artist for a living after all). I think about her a lot from that perspective, in the details of how I'm getting dressed or how I want to carry myself—how style is a signal.
But in terms of figuring out the logistics of being an artist, and having that as a life? And how you do that when you don't come from exorbitant wealth?
No, there was not necessarily a direct example of that, but I'm always looking to the Black women that came before me. Zora Neale Hurston, Audre Lorde, and other Black women writers and artists of the Black Arts Movement in the 60s, 70s, and 80s especially are always big inspirations.
And I would also, too, have to say my Mom. In the sense that…okay, let me make a sort of statement:
I think all Black life is inherently creative. In a world that would rather see Black people not exist, in a world that tells us we're not beautiful or we're problematic, in a world built on our oppression, my parents both did a really good job of not only telling, but instilling in me the belief that I could be anything that I wanted to be.
Sometimes I wish I maybe was put in an art camp in the summer instead of an engineering camp, but I was always allowed to read, and we traveled often and went to museums. My parents were big on providing me with experiences and showing me the world. I was always writing plays and doing creative things as a kid even if it wasn’t through “formal” means.
Sometimes I wonder: If I would have gone to an arts high school, how might that have changed my relationship to the work? But then again, if everything was working out, then the path I walked was to some extent the path I was meant to walk to get to where I am. So, I wouldn't necessarily change anything.
There's a lot of it that I’m just figuring out on my own and, like Issa Rae said, networking horizontally. I think social media—as good as it is and as bad as it is— enables one to see and glean, from folks on those apps or folks around you, different ways of being in the world or different ways of pursuing your craft. That's also in a lot of ways been supportive for trying to figure out: Yes, I’m an artist. Now what does life as an artist look like for me?
That's a really long answer. I don't even know if I answered your question, but…
MERRITT
They're very abstract questions, of course. I’m calling these Creative Brilliance interviews right now, and I think that’s applicable to all of you that I’m talking to. There’s something about the idea of brilliance; the shine and the sparkle. When I think of brilliance, I think of dot connections and interdisciplinary ideas and somebody who is really in love with the work itself—both thinking about the work and doing the work.
I do think of you as somebody who is a very interdisciplinary artist. You're working with clay. You're working with words. On your TikToks, you're working with video and sound and imagery, with color and light. You fuse that artistic intention into everything.
And so, I'm curious—this is a long way of asking the question—when you think about the work that you're putting into the world and the kind of life you're building, is there something you secretly want to do all day? Is there an abstract vision?
I imagine some days you're in the studio with clay, sometimes you're writing, sometimes you're doing these different things in different places.
Maybe the question is: How do you approach an interdisciplinary creative practice?
HICKMON
I think it starts with taking really good care of myself across all these different veins to the best of my ability: mental, financial, spiritual. It looks like physically like moving my body, going for walks, doing yoga, taking pilates—whatever I'm into at the moment. I'm taking care of my mental health by going to therapy and meditating and doing EFT tapping.
As an artist, part of my job is to keep the channel clear so I can be a conduit for whatever wants to come through. That means doing morning pages more days than not out of the week—not because I'm going to roll them up into some project, but because I need that to clear my brain so I can then show up to wherever I need to be.
As an artist, part of my job is to keep the channel clear so I can be a conduit for whatever wants to come through. That means doing morning pages more days than not out of the week—not because I'm going to roll them up into some project, but because I need that to clear my brain so I can then show up to wherever I need to be.
In terms of what I secretly want to do all day, the closest I get to it right now is when I'm on residencies or on holiday. It’s being able to wake up and have a slow morning and eat a good breakfast. It’s about knowing myself well enough to know what I have the capacity to do in my practice at any given moment, and knowing what environment or routine creates the best conditions for whatever wants to come through to come through.
I realized this summer while on residency, that if I’m in a period where I’m writing a lot, if I can have the morning to do any research and organizing and ease my way into it, then I can take a nice lunch and come back and write all of the words.
Even with clay, usually when I'm on my way to the studio I'm listening to a podcast. As soon as I get to the studio, I switch to jazz. I have the same playlist that I always listen to, whether I'm writing or working with clay or making a sculpture or whatever it is. The playlist is a signal to my brain, my body, my spirit: “Okay, we are doing sacred work now.”
A lot of it is this continuous checking in with myself and again, trusting myself to make good decisions for myself. Trusting myself that the work will get done. And trusting that what I need or want to come through will.
A lot of that, too, is talking with my Ancestors constantly. I do a lot of somatic check-ins, asking myself/them questions because I believe they live within my body. I don't have to go somewhere else or make it external to be able to have that conversation.
When I’m making a pot that might mean asking, “Oh, should I angle it this way or this way?” It’s about taking a second to be still and see what the answer is. Non-human or non-visible support is, I think, a big part of how I approach an interdisciplinary practice.
The last thing I’ll say is that I do a lot of research and I'm an organized person, which I think is maybe surprising for folks based on how society typically thinks about artists. I feel like the public conversation is, “Oh, they're so disorganized and they just flip from here to there and this and that.” And really, it’s not like that at all. Maybe some of us do, but I'm not personally that way.
So, you know, I trust in the different projects and in the process. I could be into something and have no clue why I was drawn to read it. Then, two months later, it becomes the name of a vessel I'm working on, or it ties into the writing I'm doing.
Trusting a lot in the things I can't fully understand myself or explain to someone else. Always knowing and believing that I can trust my guidance, I can trust myself, and I can trust what comes from that.
It's all very intuitive, you know?
MERRITT
Yeah.
HICKMON
Intuitive and relational. I have to have a very clear inner world in order for anything I'm trying to do externally, whether it's a piece for my newsletter, a pot, or a TikTok video to work. If I’m not clear on the inside, it’s not going to translate well.
MERRITT
Yeah, that makes sense. The thing I'm curious about is: How do you know when you are not clear enough on the inside to take the action?
Is it resistance? Is it that it just doesn't work? Is there a kind of Murphy's Law that happens? Or is it just, again, an intuitive knowing—you just know?
HICKMON
So, one surefire sign is if I haven't been doing morning pages, which…I'm also a contrarian, right? Sometimes I can't even tell myself what to do. But if I haven't been doing them, then I go to make something and it's stuck, and I'm like, “Oh, well. Duh.”
I get the most muddied when I'm spending too much time thinking about how whatever it is I’m making might be received or the impact that it might have on other people. “How am I going to talk about this once it's done? What is this person doing?”
When I'm spending too much time in the world of comparison, that's a surefire way for my channel to get clogged.
A lot of my process is very designed. If I know that I want to go spend eight hours in the studio, then the night before I need to pack my studio bag, make my lunch, and I need to go to bed at a good time. I need to wake up and do morning pages, write my gratitude list, and pull cards.
What's the comfy outfit that I'm putting on? What podcast am I listening to in the car? Are the AirPods max charged so I can listen to my jazz?
If the chain of any one of those steps gets broken, then whatever the outcome is won’t work as well. It's in how you show up. That is almost more of the work. The actual sitting and writing on the page or the making of the pot or the blending of the tea blend—if I haven't come to the work well, then I can't actually…I mean, I can try to do it.
MERRITT
You spoke about getting muddied in the process when you think about reception and impact. When I hear reception, I start thinking metrics and social media. It actually leads me to a question that we’ve talked about a zillion times in The Study, which is the relationship between art and content.
What do you think of that relationship as a working artist? Are they the same or are they different?
HICKMON
I think they're absolutely different. I think content potentially can be art, but I don't think art is content.
I think art comes from some other place. Not in the Judeo-Christian “Your body is a temple” way, but if I am a vessel, then whatever the thing that I'm making is coming through.
Art is channeled—it comes from some other world that we as humans cannot see. You have to be tapped in, tuned in, turned on to it. You have to be able to be in tune and be in a relationship with that place—with the other world.
I don't think you have to have that same relationship to create content. I think content is a bit lower to the ground than that. Art, to me, feels up in the clouds.
Art is channeled—it comes from some other world that we as humans cannot see. You have to be tapped in, tuned in, turned on to it. You have to be able to be in tune and be in a relationship with that place—with the other world.
I also think a difference in my own practice is that content is to tell people about the work, but it should never be the work itself. Content can tell you I made you a vessel and here's where you can go and view it or buy it. Or that I shot some film on my trip and here's where you can go and see it. Or that I wrote you a letter and here's where you can go and read it. Or that I created this tea blend to help with your PMS and here’s where you can go and buy it plus read/listen to why it will help your PMS.
Content is the thing that tells you how to experience the art. It's not the art itself.
This is interesting too, especially in the context of herbalism, which I think is an art. Herbalism, gardening, I would consider those to be part of my art practice. But they're very different, because that's the place where I’m usually very clearly in content creator mode or whatever. I'm sitting and making a video to tell you about XYZ herb, how to use it, its contraindications, etc. I don't think of that act of making the video necessarily as art.
But me knowing, “Okay, if I put this and that herb together, then I can make you a tea that you can drink when you're sick.” That I do think is an artistry. But sitting and talking to a camera to share? That I think is different.
In Audre Lorde’s interview with Claudia Tate in Black Women Writers at Work, she talks—where's my book? Hold on. Because it's never far. It's never far.
MERRITT
Wait, let me look for mine…
HICKMON
I have like three copies. It's literally one of my Bibles, one of my most sacred texts.
So, Claudia Tate asked her: “For whom do you write? What is your responsibility to your audience?”
Audre Lorde says, “I write for myself and my children and for as many people as possible who can read me, who need to hear what I have to say—who need to use what I know.”
Claudia Tate follows that up a few pages later and asks her, “Is writing a way of growing, understanding?”
And I'll skip the beginning, but then Audre Lorde says:
“…all of the things I do are very much a part of my work. They flow in and out of each other, help to nourish each other. That's what the whole question of survival and teaching means. That we keep our experience afloat long enough, that we share what we know, so that other people can build upon our experience.”
When I think about content versus art, I think art is also sharing what I know. Today, content is another way to do that. That content can be about the art, but it can also just be content unto itself. I think that's the difference.
Art to me just feels channeled. It's from this other world and it's spiritual and it can't always be explained. Content I think is easier to make sense of.
MERRITT
I totally feel you. It sounds like content for you is a part of the artist's life, but maybe not. The way you're describing the difference feels like art is what we make and then content is us standing at the market and saying, “Here's what I made.” Or doing a talk on stage and saying, “Here's what the book's about.”
It's part of the process. I think sometimes people think of content as like this drudgery or whatever, but it's a part of the artist's life. You can approach it the way that an artist would do it.
It sounds like for you there’s a clear difference between the two practices of creating content and creating art.
HICKMON
Yeah. Increasingly more and more. I think if you would’ve asked me this a few years ago, my answer would have been very different. Now I'm in a place where I never want talking about the thing or looking like I'm doing the thing to replace actually doing the thing.
I would rather be actually doing the thing and not tell you about it at all than not be doing it, but have it look like I am because of whatever content I've constructed to project some idea about myself or about my life. Which is why I'm so like, on social media one day and then gone the next.
The other thing I'll say, too, is that Gwendolyn Brooks in her poem Paul Robeson, says:
"…we are each other's
harvest:
we are each other's
business:
we are each other's
magnitude and bond."
And thinking about that has changed my relationship to content because it's like, okay. If one of the things I believe that I was put on this Earth for is to share what I know so that other people can use it, and if in this day and age, content is one of the best ways to do that…then me figuring out how to be in right relationship with content creation or social media is, like you said, a way—one way, not the only way—but it is a way of living into that purpose or calling of sharing what I know so other people can use it.
It's not the only way. It's not my favorite way, but it is a way that can't be totally ignored. Because, if you write a book and don't tell anyone about it, yes, you wrote your book, but is anyone gonna read it?
You can write/publish and absolutely just trust that, “Okay well, they'll come across it in the in the bookstore and it will grab their attention and they'll buy it. It'll reach who it reaches that way.” You can do that, that's great.
But you also then have this vehicle, which is content, to talk to more people about it and in theory to enable more people to, as Audre Lorde says, “build upon your experience.”
I think about this also the most with herbalism and with my memoir, because my herbalism practice and memoir are both rooted in having had breast cancer when I was 25 and feeling so alone and lost and angry in that, and not knowing how to deal with it, feeling like it was my fault, and trying to live a healthier life on the other side of it so I don’t have a major medical crisis again.
In The Cancer Journals, Audre Lorde says—can you tell I'm an Audre Lorde stan?—she says, “Survival is only part of the task.” She talks about the importance of teaching. I think about that a lot in relationship, again, to the memoir/my writing right now and to herbalism.
Like okay, I’ve survived. That's amazing. That's great. That's only part of it, right?
The other part of the job or the work is to share my experience, or to share all the ways I've changed my life as a result, so someone else who finds themselves in similar shoes doesn't feel, hopefully, the way I felt. And also, so hopefully less people find themselves in the shoes I was standing in to begin with.
So, some of how I think about content versus art is also: Which piece of my practice am I in, specifically?
With ceramics, they’re 3D objects. The best way to experience them is to touch them or see them in person. A photo of them, as beautiful as that can be, is so flat. You're not getting everything from the vessel that you could be.
So, content from that perspective is obviously about showing the work, and hopefully attracting opportunities to share it beyond a social media profile or page on a website. There is a place for content.
But it's just different because there's only so much that content of a 3D thing can actually do in the world and for the work.
Whereas if I'm sitting and I'm talking like, “Alright, here's all the herbs that I used after I did treatment when I was having all these hot flashes. Here's how I managed that with herbs.” That's a totally different use case and benefit to someone.
Writing too—I can see someone's words online or in a book and be totally changed. So that's a natural sort of fit for content. I'm newer to the 3D elements of my practice, so I'm still figuring out: What does inviting people into this world look like?
What medium are we talking about? If the medium is the message, then is this medium suited to whatever message I'm trying to tell?
MERRITT
When I hear you talk and I hear you quoting Audre Lorde and Gwendolyn Brooks, something I noticed is that immediately you know how to get to the page. And with the herbalism, I know that that's knowledge work: Knowing which herbs mix with other herbs to help you through a hot flash is knowledge work.
And then you’ve got the interconnections, the conclusions, right? The statements. I loved what you said earlier, that all Black life is creative. That kind of conclusion or statement—that's also the knowledge. That’s all of this coming together.
You also mentioned that you are very organized. You’ve got this backwards design process, and I know personally that you have some systems.
Can you geek out just a little bit on systems? Can you tell us anything about a tool that you're loving or a process or a framework that you've been enjoying as an artist?
HICKMON
The first thing that I will say is that different tasks or ways of being require different systems. So sometimes the system is a sticky note, right? And sometimes it's a planner or a database in Notion or Obsidian. And sometimes it’s a physical planner to sketch vessels in and keep track of the time I’m spending in the studio.
But Notion and Obsidian are the two digital tools I use the most in terms of showing up to the studio and managing my personal way of being in the world as myself, in my research or writing.
I think the girlies are very familiar with Notion, probably less familiar with Obsidian. In Notion, I have all my stuff from Pretty Decent, but I also have this page that I made, and I call Vision 35. It has my vision board, different intentions or ways of being in the world, and this list of what success feels like. It's a place I can go to ground myself.
Who am I today? Who am I working toward becoming? What am I working toward my life looking or feeling like? “Feeling like” is probably more accurate.
And then I already named another system: If I'm going to go to the studio, I have to make lunch—that's a whole system in and of itself.
But then in terms of my practice, yeah, I mean, I'm obsessed with Obsidian. I will shout it from the rooftops. In my opinion, it's the best app or software for knowledge workers out there just because of the way that it connects your ideas. I just haven't seen another application that would do that. And this I actually got from you: I have the Daily Note in there.
At Pretty Decent, we have the weekly planning sessions. I took the Daily Note loose structure from those and I made it make sense for me.
So, in Obsidian when I open it, that’s the first thing that comes up. I have a list of personal practice stuff; I have a list of stuff for like my day job. And then at the end of the day, I will take an inventory: Did you move your body? Did you drink your water? Did you write whatever it is that you’re working on?
Within that same system, I just have a lot of templates. I have a template for the Daily Note. I have a template for a weekly note that's like, okay, what's your top three for the week? What do you need to do each day?
And then I just have different folders, which comes from the PARA system that we’ve talked about before which maps to how my brain works. Everyone has to find the software or the tool or the system that maps to how their brain works—Obsidian just works really well for me.
Using it takes a lot of the pressure off because I can usually find my ideas or notes.
It is a lot of work to set a system like a Second Brain up, but then it actually makes everything a lot easier because everything has a place. My brain will remember a lot of it, but it doesn't have to remember everything because I know I can go and search for whatever I'm looking for and find it.
MERRITT
Beautiful. My last question is a quick and easy one. You're going to the park later today. What are you putting in your bag? And what bag is it?
HICKMON
Okay. If I'm going to the park, it's probably the Longchamp tote that all the girlies had in college. Inside is probably either my Kindle or a physical book. Probably also my Remarkable or my iPad.
Some snacks: Sparkling water, some fruit. I've probably got a blanket in the car because I don't want to sit on the actual grass.
And then I have these little cases, like a tech case from Calpack. That will have my chargers and powdered sunscreen. My film camera would absolutely be with me. I take that almost everywhere, even if I don't always take pictures.
And probably also my AirPods Max because the noise canceling on these bad boys is amazing.
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This was an amazing read !
Thank you for having me friend 🩷 your creative brilliance inspires me daily! 💫