Common Shapes

Latest Episodes:

A Flexible Office Hello 👋 Mar 20, 2024

Hello Common Shapes listeners. 🔸 I wanted to pop in with a little mini-episode to check in between seasons and share a few updates. Take a few minutes to hear why I changed my name and how you can join us in Flexible Office this spring. 🔹
LINKS

Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Find all these links & more at codycookparrott.com/commonshapes

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

Cultivating Creative Seasons with Jacqueline Suskin Dec 06, 2023

This week on Common Shapes podcast, I’m deep in conversation with poet, teacher, and my dear friend, Jacqueline Suskin.

Jacqueline is a poet and educator who has been teaching workshops, writing books, hosting retreats and creating spontaneous poetry around the world since 2009. She’s published eight books, and her most recent one, A Year In Practice, was just released with Sounds True press.

Together we talk about seasonal practices, radically reconnecting with the Earth, Fern Gully, writing multiple books, having multiple calendars, and choosing to remember.

Tune in to learn about—

The radical nature of connecting to the Earth’s cycles
How to tap into seasonal rhythms
Jacqueline’s daily & weekly planning practices
What’s our work & what’s not our work
How to hold nuance in your writing

Links

Visit Jacqueline’s website
Order Jacqueline’s new book, A Year in Practice
Subscribe to Jacqueline’s Substack newsletter
Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Find all these links & more at codycookparrott.com/commonshapes

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

How to Tell the Truth with Fariha Róisín Nov 29, 2023

This week on Common Shapes podcast, I’m joined by my dear friend Fariha Róisín for a conversation at the intersections of writing, politics, care, and liberation.

Fariha is a multi-disciplinary artist born in Ontario, Canada and raised in Sydney, Australia. As a Muslim queer Bangladeshi, she is interested in the margins, liminality, otherness, and the mercurial nature of being. She’s the author of five books and writes the Substack newsletter, How to Cure a Ghost.

In this episode, Fariha shares her experience telling the truth amidst propaganda and channeling righteous rage into writing. She explains how she approaches writing about Palestine during the genocide in Gaza and how she embeds the depth of her feelings and beliefs in her work.

Tune in to hear about—

Feeling the responsibility to speak out
Fariha’s process for working on two books at once
Pouring your feelings into your writing
Demystifying spiritual practice
The importance of surrender
Where the personal meets the political
How Fariha writes her weekly newsletter

Links

Visit Fariha’s website
Order Survival Takes a Wild Imagination
Subscribe to Fariha’s Substack newsletter
Follow Fariha on Instagram
Mentioned in the episode: James Baldwin, Mother Country Radicals
Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Find all these links & more at codycookparrott.com/commonshapes

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

The Importance of the Personal Essay Nov 22, 2023

I’ve been writing personal essays for over a decade, and I believe that my personal essay practice allowed me to leave social media.

So in today’s episode, I share how I blend the personal, the poetic, and the political in my writing. And I unpack how that supports me in speaking up and sharing my work without shying away from what’s happening in the world.
I hope this episode inspires you to share your writing with the people. Tune in to learn about—

The importance of your life story
How to share your political values
Facing fear when we don’t know what to say
Being willing to get it wrong
Why you should choose a container for your writing
How personal essays can help you leave social media

Links

Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Sign up for Writing the Personal, Dec 3 -17
Mentioned in the episode — Body Work by Melissa Febos, 69herbs, Sister Spinster, Lukaza’s Substack, Fariha’s Substack, Friendship Village book, Bear Hebert, Off the Grid podcast, Ayana Zaire Cotton Substack
Find all these links & more at codycookparrott.com/commonshapes

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

Leaving Instagram or Exiting the Portal of the Validation Loop Nov 15, 2023

Welcome to season two of Common Shapes! Since last season, I took a big step in my life and logged out of Instagram for good.

So in this episode, I’m going to share why I left and how I did it. Not from a place of knowing-it-all, but by asking the question, “what does it actually mean to be done with social media?”

I hope this episode inspires you to take supportive steps that are right for you. Tune in to learn about—

What it’s like to leave Instagram
The portal of the validation loop
A big business success moment since leaving
Is Substack social media?
Weaving the personal, poetic & political

Links

Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Sign up for my Skillshare class, Success on Substack
Listen to Off the Grid podcast — especially the 5-step Plan to Leave Social Media & this conversation with Melissa Word
Find all these links & more at codycookparrott.com/commonshapes

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

Embracing Your Everchanging Job Description Jul 20, 2023

Making this podcast brought me into a business ecosystem crisis. Very little of my output changed, but my inner understanding of my work needed to shift.
So in today’s episode, I’m sharing how my job description has changed since I launched this show. And I’m exploring how shifting your job description can transform your relationship to your work.
Tune in to learn about—

How to discover what you’re devoted to
What are the themes of your job
What is not your job
How to write your job description
Aligning your job with your values & interests
What’s next for Common Shapes podcast

Links

Get my mini-workshop Your Everchanging Job
Book a Creative Advising Sessions
Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Find all these links & more at codycookparrott.com/commonshapes

🔶 Interested in finding out more about placing an ad for next season? Fill out this form!

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

Creating Your Offer Ecosystem Jul 12, 2023

Your offer ecosystem is how your creative offerings branch out of your artistry, fit together in the world, increase your income, and expand your reach.
In this episode, I share how I’ve crafted my offer ecosystem over the past decade, and I tell you the stories of how a few of my offers have evolved and even ended.
Tune in to learn about—

What an offer ecosystem is
My favorite ways to get ideas for your offer ecosystem
How to choose a container for an offer
Why one-on-one work can be a great place to start
Charging for your offerings

Links

Learn more about Teaching As A Practice
Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Find all these links & more at codycookparrott.com/commonshapes

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

5 Reasons the World Needs Your Online Class Jul 05, 2023

Teaching online classes is how I’ve made the majority of my income since 2017. And it is a great joy of my career to have had such amazing, invested, weird, inspirational students.

In this episode, I’m going to share my approach to creating an online class by walking us through how I teach my class A Quilt Is Something Human.
I hope that this inspires you to become the teacher that you are meant to be.
Grab a pen & paper, then tune in to learn about—

How to decide what to teach
Reasons to teach online
Pricing your online class
5 reasons the world needs your online class
Some of my favorite tech for selling online classes

Links

Learn more about Teaching As A Practice
Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Learn about Melissa Word’s class Grief Threads
Find all these links & more at codycookparrott.com/commonshapes

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

How to Commit to the Life of an Artist with Anna Fusco Jun 28, 2023

This week on Common Shapes podcast, I’m joined by my internet friend Anna Fusco to discuss dedicating your life to art.

Anna is an artist, writer, deep thinker, question asker and truth teller. Her practice consists of writing her Substack newsletter and making drawings.

Together we talk about our daily list practice, creating a gallery show, the challenges of pricing your work, and what it means to be a full-time artist.

Tune in to learn about—

The List aka Project Miracle
Making art & having art shows
Pricing your work
Newsletters & Substack
How to get started as a self-employed artist

Links

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

6 Tools for When You Don’t Know What To Do Next Jun 21, 2023

I think the great fear of most creative people is that we’ll run out of ideas and not know what to do next.

I come up against this time and time again in my own work, so I’ve developed a series of practices for releasing fear, removing blocks, returning to center, and discovering what’s next.

Tune in to this episode to learn my six favorite tools for when I don’t know what to do, including—

Morning pages & artist dates
Movement
Phoning a friend
Setting up an easy practice
List-making
Recovery & spiritual practice

After you listen, go get my free Creative Ideation Portal, and join me in dreaming up what’s next for you and your work.

Links

Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Get Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way
Find all these links & more at codycookparrott.com/commonshapes

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

Storytelling as a Throughline with Tamara Santibañez Jun 14, 2023

This week on Common Shapes podcast, I’m sharing the mic with my friend Tamara Santibañez for a conversation about oral histories, tattooing, freelancing, and art as activism.

Tamara is an interdisciplinary artist and oral historian living and working in Brooklyn. Their work is rooted in storytelling and the visual language of identity construction, exploring subcultural semiotics and the meanings we make from bodily adornment.

Tune in to hear us discuss—

Tamara’s studio practice
Oral histories & oral traditions
Tattooing as liberation work
How to balance many projects as a freelancer
Making time for movement work
Coalitions & political responsibility
The different feelings/functions/forms of Instagram vs Substack

Links—

Visit Tamara’s website
Follow Tamara on Instagram
Subscribe to Tamara’s Substack
Get Tamara’s book, Could This Be Magic? Tattooing as Liberation Work
Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Find all these links & more at codycookparrott.com/commonshapes

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

Finding the Pace of Our Work Jun 07, 2023

This week on Common Shapes, I share four practices for checking in with your creative pace — internal seasons, intuitive sharing, weather systems, and the earning pathway.
This episode feels like an updated version of How to Not Always Be Working, and I hope it serves your practice, your pace, and your deepest alignment.
Listen in to learn—

Why lists are how I orient myself in my life
How to identify & live by your internal seasons
What it means to share intuitively
How to cultivate your earning pathway
Why it’s so important to find your own pace

After you listen, go get my free Creative Ideation Portal, and join me in making our art and pacing ourselves.

Links

Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Take my class, Organizing A Day
Find all these links & more at codycookparrott.com/commonshapes

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

Our Work is a Web with Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo May 31, 2023

This week I’m welcoming Common Shapes’ very first guest, Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo.

Lukaza (they/them/Lukaza) an artist, abolitionist, educator, storyteller, cultural worker and person of multitudes. Through a practice based in the printed multiple, community-based work and installation building, they invite the viewer to recall and share their own lived narratives, offering power and weight to the creation of a larger dialogue around the telling of B.I.Q.T.P.O.C. (Black, Indigenous, queer, trans, people of color) stories.

Listen in to hear us discuss—

The web shape for creative work
How to craft a studio practice
Claiming our work as our main income stream
How to weave your values and your activism into your sharing practices
The radical history of newsletters

Links

Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Find all these links & more at codycookparrott.com/commonshapes

More from Lukaza

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

Art as Service May 24, 2023

This week’s episode of Common Shapes is about the fact (yes, it’s a fact) that your art is of service, no matter what you create.

I also share my four containers for connecting with the why behind your work. And I offer many, many ideas for how to market your art in creative, fun, meaningful ways.

Listen in to learn—

Why all art is of service
How to figure out who your art is for
My favorite creative marketing practices
Practices for visioning our work in the world
A spell for hitting send

After you listen, go get my free Creative Ideation Portal, and join me in sharing your work with the world!

Links

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

The Art of Newsletters May 24, 2023

Today’s episode of Common Shapes is about why I love newsletters and why you (yes, you) should have one.

Together we’ll explore the marketing side and the creative side of newsletters. I’ll also share—

My journey starting my newsletter
How to choose your email service provider
The newsletter tech I recommend
What to put in your newsletter
Examples from my favorite newsletters
How to decide if your newsletter should be paid or free

After you listen, go get my free Creative Ideation Portal, and get ready to hit send on your first (or next) newsletter today.

Links

Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Join Flexible Office, my digital co-working space
Take my Newsletter class
Use the code MARLEEGRACE to get 50% off your first year of Flodesk
Newsletters I mentioned in this episode: Fariha Roisin’s Substack How to Cure a Ghost, Liz Migliorelli’s Sister Spinster newsletter, Kevin Morby’s Substack
Off the Grid episode, “To Substack or Not to Substack”
Find all these links & more at codycookparrott.com/commonshapes

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

Creating Creative Containers May 17, 2023

Today’s episode of Common Shapes is about creating creative containers for our work and convening the spiritual committees that help us make and share our art.

Tune in to hear me share—

The many shapes my work has taken
How I select and gather my spiritual committee for each creative project
Why you need an email list
All kinds of containers your work can take
The importance of being in community with other artists

Then grab my free Creative Ideation Portal and start gathering your committee and outlining your first project today.

Links

Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Join Flexible Office, my digital co-working space
Take my Newsletter class
Teachers I shared: Bear Hebert of Marketing for Weirdos & Amelia Hruby of Off the Grid
Find all these links & more at codycookparrott.com/commonshapes

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

Making a Beginning May 17, 2023

Welcome to Common Shapes! This week’s episode is about the art of beginning AKA the moment just before the sunrise of our projects when anything and everything is possible.

Tune in to hear me share—

Stories of my many creative beginnings
My favorite visioning process
Reflections on imposter syndrome
The magic of starting small

Then grab my free Creative Ideation Portal and start dreaming up your own beginnings today.

Links

Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Sign up for my class, The Art of Beginning
Take my Newsletter class
Find all these links & more at codycookparrott.com/commonshapes

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

Welcome to Common Shapes May 08, 2023

Welcome to Common Shapes, a podcast about practices, systems and rituals for creative life.
It’s hosted by me, Cody Cook-Parrott.
And on this show, I talk about crafting business ecosystems that are in alignment with our values, marketing as a creative practice, and crossing the bridge between artist and small business owner.
Tune in to the first four episodes for my Creative Ideation Portal guide, and then stay tuned for conversations with artists, writers and thinkers I’m grateful to be in community with.
Whether you’re dreaming up a book, a newsletter, a thoughtful text to a friend, an online class, a podcast, a collection of beautiful paintings in an art gallery, a membership site, a dog walking service, or anything else — Common Shapes is here to support you on your path to creation and to service. Subscribe to join us.

Links

Get the Creative Ideation Portal
Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday
Join Flexible Office, my digital co-working space
Find all these links & more at marleegrace.space/commonshapes

🖱️ Join me in Flexible Office: A Digital Co-working Space for all of us. We begin April 2nd!

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