A place for artists to find clarity when doubt creeps in, motivation when inspiration feels distant, and connection when the journey seems solitary.
Creative journeys are never straightforward.
Through community-led conversations, reflective resources, and meaningful mentorship, The Healthy Artist is redefining what it means to thrive creatively.
Reconstructing the Landscape: 3-Week Painting Club Inspired by Hurvin Anderson
Join our 3-Week Contemporary Painting Club and dive deep into the world of contemporary painter Hurvin Anderson. Over three focused sessions, we will explore using photography to build lanscapes alongside our imagintion. how to draw from personal references, loosen your brushwork, and deconstruct images through expressive paint- with lively discussion, live demos, and feedback throughout.
Hosted by Martha Lamont.
Poster artwork by Hurvin Anderson
Deconstructing the Reference: 3-week Abstract Painting Club inspired by Cecily Brown
Join our 3-Week Abstract Painting Club and dive deep into the world of contemporary painter Cecily Brown. Over three focused sessions, we will explore how to draw from personal references, loosen your brushwork, and deconstruct images through expressive paint- with lively discussion, live demos, and feedback throughout.
Poster art by Cecily Brown
The Painting Club: The Narrative Canvas (Evening Class)
Explore how to reference and re-imagine classical art history to tell your own personal stories. Focusing on painters Kerry James Marshall, Salman Toor, and Doron Langberg, this 12-week term guides you through building your own compositions, exploring light, form and paint application to capture your own personal stories and emotion.
Poster art by Kerry James Marshall
The Painting Club: The Fluid Canvas (Morning Class)
Learn how to take traditional reference images, from Rococo masterpieces to historic landscapes and systematically break them down into pure abstraction. Studying painters Flora Yukhnovich, Megan Baker, and Julia Jo, this term moves from initial pastel drawings into loose, bleeding washes and heavy, gertural impasto textures.
Poster art by Flora Yukhnovich
6-Month Mentorship | Rolling Intake
Deepen your practice over six months with six 1:1 virtual sessions. Explore ideas, experiment with materials, and reflect on your work with tailored guidance, practical support, and demos.
We operate on a rolling intake, allowing you to choose a flexible start date that fits your schedule. Limited slots ensure personal support and focused creative growth.
Hosted by Martha Lamont (5 Sessions)One Session by Daniel Curtis (Writing & Professional Voice)
Click below to submit your application.
✦ The Healthy Artist Studio Workbook
This is the exact 6-month prompt framework we send our 1-to-1 mentees before each session to unpack their studio headspace, look at their work objectively, and figure out their blocks. Use it as a monthly workbook to track your favorite pieces, learn from failed experiments, and protect and nurture your mindset.
You can work through these chapters completely on your own, but if you want a supportive space to unpack the answers together, our 1-to-1 Rolling Mentorship Programme is open for applications whenever you are ready.
Hosted by Martha Lamont
One Session by Daniel Curtis
The Heathy Artist podcast
Hosted by artists Martha Lamont and Dan Curtis, The Healthy Artist podcast is here to help artists (including ourselves) build the tools to create a sustainable and resilient art practice, with slowness, honesty—and a good dose of humour.
Martha Lamont
Martha’s work explores the inner life of a sensitive mind through the mediums of drawing, painting, collage and sculpture.
Dan Curtis
Dan spends his time scavenging and hoarding strange objects to create works that wrestle with the idea of abstraction.
Listen to The Healthy Artist now
Episode 37- Rethinking Creative Ambition w:/ Martha Lamont & Damaris Athene
In this week's episode we dive deep into what it means to be successful and discuss how we can shift from a lack mentality when it comes to our creative paths. We discuss how to redefine ambition as a daily roadmap, rather than hyper-focusing on an imaginary 'sparkly castle' that we want to arrive at. "Man plans, and god laughs" is a quote we reflect on and how leaning into the everyday is the most healthy way of living.
Episode 36- Art as a Place of Healing w:/ Sophie Smorczewski
What happens to your creative practice when your body suddenly forces you to stop?
In this episode, Martha sits down with artist Sophie Smorzweski to discuss her "Kitchen Table" series and the profound impact of periods of illness on her work. Sophie opens up about navigating this at the age of 18, experiencing periods of isolation as "mini lockdowns," and how the kitchen table transformed from a symbol of confinement into a powerful site of healing and artistic recovery.
Episode 35- Jealousy, Competition and Comparison w/: Martha Lamont & Damaris Athene
In this month's Wellness Journal, Martha Lamont and guest co-host Damaris Athene break the silence around two of the most isolating feelings in the studio: jealousy and comparison. Unpacking Julia Cameron’s famous quote on the topic, they discuss handling the reality of rejections, projection and the 'compare-and-despair' trap, alongside the huge disconnect between a successful Instagram grid and a difficult lived reality.
Episode 34- Art and Motherhood Pt2: w/ Eri Maeda
In this episode, we continue the conversation on motherhood through a deeply personal lens.Eri, a Japanese artist living in Paris, shares her experience of navigating pregnancy while being confronted with unresolved parts of her own upbringing. As she describes it, it can feel like opening a dark box, one that asks you to face old patterns and question the kind of parent you want to become.
Episode 33- Dealing With Criticism as an Artist w/: Martha Lamont & Damaris Athene
In this episode, we unpack the role of criticism in an artist’s practice: how to receive it, how to give it, and how to keep creating through it.When is feedback helpful, and when does it start to pull you away from your own voice? We talk about trusting your instincts, recognising useful critique, and those rare moments when feedback sparks a real shift in the work.
Episode 32- A Guided Journalling Session: w/ Martha Lamont
Grab a pen, or a notepad… or open a notes app and give yourself a bit of space. As we go, I’ll be asking you some questions and I’d really encourage you to pause the podcast after each one… give yourself the time to actually sit with it… and respond. Even though this is a short episode, I would give yourself 30-60 mins with the pauses. If you would like to share your reflections please do email thehealthyartistpod.com. We will send the questions out on our newsletter and share them on substack. Please do share this episode if you feel another creative could do with a moment of pause and reflection.
Episode 31- What Is The Point Of Making Art, When The World Is On Fire?: w/ Martha Lamont & Damaris Athene
In this episode of The Healthy Artist, we’re exploring a feeling many artists quietly carry but don’t always speak about, this sense that making art can feel pointless, indulgent, or even unnecessary when there is so much difficulty happening in the world.
Together, we sit with that discomfort and look at where it comes from: guilt, productivity culture, attention, and the pressure to justify creativity. We also reflect on how making art can be reframed not as self-indulgence, but as something deeply human- an act of connection, agency, and meaning-making.
Episode 30- Art and Motherhood: w/ Eleanor May Watson
In this weeks episode we explore motherhood with Eleanor May Watson. Eleanor shares how her first child made her confront barriers she put in her own way in her practice and her journey in letting go and becoming a stronger painter. Eleanor bravely shares the struggles alongside the triumph, and we are beyond grateful for her honesty.
Episode 29 - February Wellness Journal- The Fear Of Being Seen: w/ Martha Lamont & Damaris Athene
In this weeks episode Martha connects with Damaris on her residency in Stavanger. After catching up on their wellness this month they dive into the theme of "The Fear Of Being Seen", covering topics such as the ideas that fuel the work, how we approach writing personal statements and titles for artworks, social media and creative boundaries
Episode 28 - Using Art to Reflect and Change the World: w/ Ken Nwadiogbu
In this episode of The Healthy Artist we interviewed Ken Nwadiogbu, we explore how to stay grounded in the everyday while holding big dreams. How do you dream boldly without rushing the process?
We talk about creating without pressure, mapping the journey instead of chasing outcomes, and why abstraction became a powerful language in his work. He shares how he built an artist community in Nigeria, what success has meant so far, and how meaningful it’s been to have his family recognize his dream as valuable.
Episode 27 —Making Meaning Through Material: w/ Valentino Vannini
In this episode, Martha Lamont is joined by artist Valentino Vaninni for a conversation about using art as a way to understand ourselves and the world around us. Together they explore social engagement in art, working with materials that carry meaning, queering structure and form, and how vulnerability, humour, and imperfection can open up new ways of connecting with an audience.
Episode 26 —January Wellness Journal- Slowing Down, Crunch Time & Creative Trust: w/ Martha Lamont & Damaris Athene
A gentle wellness journal for artists, loosely inspired by The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.In this episode, we explore the tender, often tricky feelings that surface at the start of a new year- rebuilding self-trust, learning how to recognise our gut feeling, and sitting with the vulnerability of beginning new projects when certainty feels far away. Martha is moving through a season of slowing down, while Damaris is in a period of creative crunch as deadlines approach. Together, they reflect on how to honour the seasonality of their practices, making space for both rest and momentum without guilt.
Episode 25 —Beginning Gently: Reflections for a New Year
As The Healthy Artist turns one, Martha shares a gentle New Year reflection on creative care, grounding practices, and what the next chapter will look like. This short episode touches on finding a softer rhythm, setting values-led boundaries, working within limits, and staying connected to your creative practice without rushing towards outcomes. A quiet invitation to begin the year with care.
Episode 24 — Inside the Artist's Professional Journey: Challenges, Clarity & Mentorship: w/ Claudia Kennaugh
In this episode, we sit down with Claudia Kennaugh, professional artist coach and advisor, to explore her mission to empower artists with clarity, confidence, and sustainable creative practice. Claudia shares the most common challenges artists face today, from finding an authentic artist voice, to the essential theme of slowness- why it matters, how it supports creativity, and how artists can invite more space for it in their creative careers.
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Episode 23 — Painting and Intergenerational Trauma: w/ Heeyoung Noh
Heeyoung Noh is an emerging painter from South Korea, who explores themes of intergenerational trauma, diaspora and the female body. We talked to Heeyoung about her experiences working with intense and personal subject matter, her experience studying and working across multiple countries and cultures, and how she maintains a healthy artist community in times of isolation.
Episode 22 — The Radical Role of Artist Community
As artists we can feel that we are not deserving of a community. That our work is not good enough or real enough to connect with other artists, and that we are the only ones who feel like this. What is the solution to this feeling of isolation? Carving out your own community, and finding those like you. This week we dive into the radical act of building artistic community and lay some foundations for how we are building community through the Healthy Artist podcast, with information about upcoming courses, mentorship programmes, and in person meet ups!
Episode 21 — Building Your Own Opportunities: w/ Hector Campbell
In this week we interviewed Hector Campbell. Hector is an art historian, writer and curator based in South London. He is the director of Soup Gallery in Elephant & Castle and runs a weekly newsletter called The Shock of the Now and much much more. We loved hearing about Hector's journey, work ethic and advice for artists.
Episode 20 — Breaking Creative Blocks
In this weeks episode we discussed 6 ways of breaking free from creative blocks for ourselves and for you. Tune in to hear us discuss the following ideas:
1- Acting from your values not from your mood
2- Doing something familiar
3- Doing something wild and different
4- Looking to a non art source
5- Engaging with other artists work
6- Working it out in community
Episode 19 — Survival Notes with Lydia Figes
In this week we interviewed Lydia Figes. Lydia is a writer, editor and art historian who is currently curator of digital at Contemporary Art Society. Lydia has just released her debut book called Survival Notes, Life Lessons From Contemporary Artists in which she interviews established artists from all areas of the art world on topics such as art education, self-discipline, gallery representation and mental well-being. We loved chatting to Lydia and reading Survival Notes. We really appreciated the wisdom and insights she shared in this conversation alongside her new book. Make sure to buy and check it out.
Episode 18 — Art and Burnout with Damaris Athene
This week we had the chance to talk online with artist Damaris Athene, on the verge of her first major London commercial solo exhibition. We talked with Damaris about her recent successes and opportunities that have come out of committing an intense amount of time to her practice, but also the other side of success - how running on the treadmill of the art world has caused burn out, unhealthy practices and losing sight of what its all about.
Episode 17 — What even is the 'Art World'?
Its easy to believe that the 'Art World' is all nepotism, privilege or pretentious nonsense - and to get stuck in a space of frustration about the whole damn thing. But what might a reframing of this idea, or this place, look like? This week we challenged ourselves to define what the art world is, and how we might work to make it the kind of art world we want to be in.
Episode 16 — Honouring Good Practice, with Ocki Magill From Blue Shop Gallery
This week Martha, co-host of The Healthy Artist, interviewed Ocki Magill, founder and director of Blue Shop Gallery in South London. We spoke about subjects such as her ethos as a gallery, their journey so far, the power of creative community and her hopes for the future.
Episode 15 — Art and Fear | Part 02
Part 02 of our two part episode looking at the amazing Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland. We chose another four quotes that resonated deeply with us and hopefully will with you too!
Episode 14 — Art and Fear | Part 01
This week we are taking a deep dive into 'Art Fear' the amazing book by David Bayles and Ted Orland. The book is all about why and how art gets made, but also why it doesn't, and what makes so many artists give up along the way. We share some of our favourite quotes and discuss how they have been influential in how we approach our practice.
Episode 13 — Curating is Community with Adela Blanco
Adela talks about how she keeps up the practice of being a 'Healthy Curator' when doubt creeps in, and shares her mantras for keeping going into a strange art world.
Episode 12 — Remaining Playful With Vincent Hawkins
This week we interview Vincent Hawkins, an artist who lives and works in Margate. Vincents work throughout his career has been extensive and varied, very much believing in the power of experimentation and play in the studio and in the way he exhibits works. We really enjoyed getting to know Vincent’s journey and process more.
Episode 11 — Collaging History With Adolphus Washington
Adolphus is a New Yorker who lives and works in London. As a lover of history and politics, his work captures the culture and sensibility of the Black American experience. He works primarily with collage, believing it to be the most democratic medium that best embodies the improvisatory nature of Black American culture. We enjoyed getting to know more about the work and the influences behind Adolphus as a maker, we hope you enjoy.
Episode 10 — Quotes To Keeps You Going
It's episode 10! In celebration of this milestone we reached out a bunch of artists to ask them all for the quote that keeps them going when all seems lost. Gathered here is a collection of all those recordings into one episode, something to come back to when your self doubt is high and you need a creative refresh. Enjoy!
Episode 9 — Using The Work To Do The Work With Yolanda Shields aka Milktooth
How do we retain joy and curiosity as artists? In this episode we interview Yolanda Shields aka Milktooth, an artist and educator who generously shares with us their process of dealing with Complex-PSTD through their hands.
Episode 8 — 'Poor Artists' with The White Pube
This week we had the absolute privilege of interviewing Zarina Muhammad and Gabrielle de la Puente, known collectively as The White Pube. We laughed and we cried – we were so honoured to chat to them today about their journey. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
Episode 7 — The Rules of Art: Sister Corita Kent - Part 2
Part two of delving into the art rules of Sister Corita Kent, sometimes known as the pop art Nun. In collaboration with her students, she came up with the ten rules of the art school, asking them to re-imagine what a learning environment could be.
Episode 6 — The Rules of Art: Sister Corita Kent - Part 1
What does it mean to find a place you trust as a creative? How do we allow the studio to be remain a space of experimentation with all the outside noise of capitalism? In this weeks episode we delved into the work and teachings of Sister Corita Kent, sometimes known as the pop art Nun. Sister Corita was an artist, activist and arts educator as well as a practicing Nun. This is a 2 part episode, the second will be released next week.
Episode 5 — Embracing Uncertainty, with Betsy Bradley
What does it look like to lean into uncertainty in your practice and art career? In this episode we interview Betsy Bradley, an artist whose gorgeous paintings and installations embrace patience and impermanence. Betsy generously shared her journey of navigating being an artist living with chronic illness, and how she has kept on the journey when all seemed impossible.
Episode 4 — Social Media For Artists: The Joys and Sorrows
For many creatives navigating the landscape of social media feels totally disorienting. Share work for ourselves or to please the mystical algorithm? Pour hours into creating behind the scenes studio videos, or abandon the whole damn thing all together? In this episode we discuss the joys and sorrows of using social media as an artist, looking at the science and psychology behind compulsive scrolling, and reframing our relationship to social media based on our vales, not the metrics.
Episode 3 — Myths of success
Exploring what success means beyond traditional metrics like fame or financial gain, and how artists can set healthy and personal measures of achievement. Exploring what success means beyond traditional metrics like fame or financial gain, and how artists can set healthy and personal measures of achievement. Exploring what success means beyond traditional metrics like fame or financial gain, and how artists can set healthy and personal measures of achievement.
Episode 2 — What is a Healthy Artist? (Part 2)
What does it mean to live in line with your values as an artist? How does knowing your personal values shape the work you make and opportunities you aim for? In this episode we interview artist Dan Curtis, and hear his thoughts on aligning your creative practice with your value system. Not comparing your journey to others, as we navigate the many toxic spaces of the creative industries.
Episode 1 — What is a Healthy Artist? (Part 1)
How do I practice being a Healthy Artist? Is it even possible? In our first episode we hear from artist Martha Lamont about what she thinks it means to be a 'Heathy Artist'. We hear about letting go of the illusion of control in your art practice, working from where your nervous system is not on fire, and becoming stable enough to make and think clearly. Maintaining balance against the backdrop of art world challenges, toxic thought processes, and stress about financial success.
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The Healthy Artist is a passion project, created to support and uplift artists navigating the challenges of creative life. We’d love to reach more people who need this, and with your support, we can grow our resources and keep sharing valuable insights. Whether through a donation or sponsorship, every contribution helps us expand our reach, create more content, and provide even better support for artists. If you’d like to get involved, we’d love to hear from you.
