The creative process is exciting, messy, scary, challenging, and then, in the end, it delivers a feeling of fulfillment that only creating can provide. But only if we make it to the end. In the beginning, we always "know" what we are creating and how it will look in the end. We know right up until the point that we don't anymore. Those are the moments in the process that are scary. The art of creating is allowing ourselves to see this process in everything and challenging ourselves to hold judgment until the end. To do that, we must live in that uncomfortable space between the excitement and the triumph. The wisdom in the creative process is knowing when it is time to stretch a new canvas because the creative vision has changed. After all, you have changed during the process—understanding that becoming more and taking shape is the natural progression of both the creator and the creation. Since Lily joined me on this journey, many people have asked us how she fits in. The question baffled me because it felt so right to have a creative entrepreneur by my side while simultaneously struggling to answer the question in a way that made sense. Now I see that Lily and I wasn't the confusing part; applying us to the old canvas was. What is Whiskey Crawler Creative? It is the combined vision of two creatives growing and creating together. So what does Whiskey Crawler do? We create emotion by creating with emotion. We build brands with purpose.

Although we love our clients and the client work that comes with them, we seldom get to create what most would define as art. This weekend we got the opportunity to do just that at Peoria Ignite. This year The Arts Partners provided Lily and me the opportunity to put on Fashion Ignite. We were able to use our storytelling skills to bring Lily’s vision to life in real-time in front of an audience. We brought the environmental impacts of the fashion industry into focus through photography. As consumers, we tend to ignore, or are innocently ignorant of, the consequences of our purchases and uses thereof, so we wanted to Make Sustainable Fashionable. To do this, we chose to do a live photoshoot to give the audience a look behind the scenes of a fashion shoot while using pieces designed to tell the darker story of the consequences that the fashion industry's practices leave with us long after the garment is discarded. You might have missed this year’s Fashion Ignite, but this was only one piece. Phase Two will be releasing the art that we created Saturday as art pieces in a gallery opening. Follow along as we share our story and the creatives behind it.