Kathryn Vercillo
Writer-artist-researcher exploring where art meets psychology
The human behind Create Me Free is Kathryn Vercillo, a writer-artist-researcher with an expertise in crochet as therapy who has made a full-time living as a creative in the pricey-but-magical city of San Francisco for the past two decades despite living with persistent double depression.
Create Me Free supports artists/makers/creatives in their journeys to experience holistic wellness – creative, emotional, financial, physical, relational.
When I use the term “mental health” I sometimes mean things with a diagnosis and symptoms but just as often I mean something akin to “how the challenges of life are affecting our thoughts and experiences.”
My Approach
I honor the therapeutic benefits of creativity while holding space for the shadow side of how mental health / psychological states can impact creative process, content, medium, productivity, artistic identity and creative businesses.
I believe that our own psychology and creativity deeply intersect with our communities, culture, etc. The world within us meets the world external to us.
I believe that we are all artists and we all have mental health.
Artistic Tithing
I practice artistic tithing, meaning that I give a minimum of 10% of all earned income each year directly back to other artists, writers, makers, performers, creators. It’s usually more than 10% but that’s the minimum no matter what else is going on in my life because I believe deeply in this.