Hali Karla is a mixed-media painter, teacher and holistic-creativity coach who
has been teaching online for 10+ years from her home in Western North
Carolina.
Truthfully, though, she has been engaging and expressing creatively for as long
as she can remember. As a child she was recording her thoughts and
observations before she even knew how to write words, falling into a lifelong
love affair with music as player and listening devotee, embracing the dramatic
escape+release of theatrical performance, and exploring the challenge of visual
language and art-making. Naturally driven to make art as an intuitive response
to life, it has also played a pivotal role in her healing journey and spiritual life.
Hali earned a fine arts degree, has experience exhibiting in shows and directing
a gallery, and took a hiatus into healthcare. Working as a hospice nurse, it turns
out, was deeply formative and inspired Hali’s return to her creative path. With a
passion for the crossroads of human psyche, spirit and embodied presence, she
felt called to explore life cycles, the power of play and intuition, and the infinite
inspiration of nature within the creative process experience.
With her workshops, circles and offerings, she hopes to encourage others to
engage life in ways that welcomes their innate wholeness, embodied presence
and creative energy into how they navigate change, see connections and make
their {life} art.
Hali hosts the Creative Practice KEEPERS online art community, and more, in
her Creative Practice Way network for soulful artists and curious creatives.

Website  ☆ Instagram  ☆ Youtube ☆ Pinterest

What does Art is Magic mean to you?

Transformation. Art making and artworks carry the possibility to change us, heal
us, shift and form our perspectives, relieve, “speak” truth, inspire and awaken
our sense of connection to the sacred. Art transforms us. It can invite and
transport. It’s a bit unpredictable when it will work its magic on us - and that’s
part of it, isn’t it?
That paint-flinging and moving color or elements, around, for instance, is
perfectly capable of holding paradoxes, opening portals of possibility, and
releasing pressure, or making space for the light to enter… that seems like a
little bit magic to me. Even in the bleakest of times, if we can remember to tend
our creative fire anyway, it can give purpose, vision, peace… and reconnect us
with wonder and a sense of what is, deeper, shared and true.
So I guess “Art is Magic” goes a little further for me… when we recognize that
art is not a thing, but a verb… a choice to move with what matters and calls, an
inspirited dance of many expressions, a way of seeing and coming to our lives
and how we relate to cycles of interconnection. In the intimate call-andresponse
of making, I begin to feel that what may seem like magic is really
deliciously entangled with conscious choice, unconscious impulse, rivers of time
and story, and the mysterious+fluid design of Life itself.

What is currently inspiring you?

Making art in and inspired by nature has my heart. The light, textures, patterns,
colors, cycles, big and miniscule views… and the realms that emerge, both real
and imaginal - and how they point to the natural world, potentially evoking more
wonder, curiosity and respect for our relationship with it.
The spaciousness that comes in that outer or inner presence to creation’s
abundance+beauty nourishes and re-centers me. But maybe more importantly it
feels like a necessary pause, to listen to the call to change how we live now in a
way that better represents our values and care for what we hope will be.
Also… gouache! An unexpected love I discovered a few years ago, I very much
enjoy its versatility and the way it makes me pay attention to what I’m creating in
fresh ways. It has me scaling down in an intimate way that feels rightproportioned
and more eco-friendly right now - and yet experimenting with it
and my other favorite mediums feels full of potential, too - so I’m having fun with
that!
Finally, being connected to other artists+creatives every day, if I want to, through
my Creative Practice KEEPERS community and a creative business group. The
world is scary these days, there is a lot of solitude as an artist, and it’s easy to
spiral into despair or hopelessness… but being connected to my inspiring group
members and other artists and creatives really helps me stay grounded,
committed and awake to the movement of creative spirit and goodness in the
life I’m able to live.

How has your process evolved?

My core practice approach was primarily intuitive and process-oriented for the
last decade, and this has stopped being such an exciting, fruitful posture for me.
Rather than questioning that, I’m staying curious as I lean back into more
intentional structure, discipline, playing with techniques, and longview-vision.
There’s an unexpected joy I’m finding in that angle that has even me baffled…
and so I’m paying attention.
Intuition will always be in my process - that’s just who I am at my core - but it’s
the landing place (or outcome) of my process that is really challenging and
interesting me right now. It may be my formal art training integrating with my
intuitive ways a bit - and that’s exciting as I make decisions and moves towards
making a cohesive body of work again. There’s a sweet spot in that tension,
between process-orientation and outcome-interest - and I’ve always been
seeking that in some way - it just feels clearer and intentional now.
I see all this as an evolution because the creative process is always a sort of
spiral shape and direction, I feel - where we come back around to certain ideas
and ways again and again, but a little differently and hopefully more awake or intune
to how they integrate and connect with the bigger picture, our culminating
experiences, or our current explorations somehow. It’s really a lovely movement,
internally and externally, to be aware of how we see the shape of our cycles and
evolution in the creative process.