Special Guest: Gifted Achiever Sharon Louden

Your Gifted Underachievers are delighted to welcome artist and social change instigator Sharon Louden into the Clubhouse to talk about the nature of creativity, how artists (and creative people generally) are much more than makers, and the amazing opportunity we have right now to change how art and artists are seen and supported in the world. Warm, funny, and generous, Sharon is a catalyst for the support of creative people of all disciplines and levels of experience. Her most recent book, Last Artist Standing: Living and Sustaining a Creative Life Over 50, is an incredible resource on how to keep creating throughout your life—whether you’ve just begun or have been making it work for decades.And what about founding the Institute for Sustained Creativity (ISC)? The name says it all. We urge you to check out the ISC’s website—but in the meantime, here’s a short excerpt explaining the groundbreaking work they are doing in the world:The ISC is a peer-to-peer service organization for artists, a communication hub, and a research think-tank sharing real-life, pragmatic solutions and tangible pathways for artists to sustain their creative lives … in ways that benefit the communities in which they live and work.James and Pat are both proud owners of Sharon’s books and keen supporters of the ISC. We cannot wait to put our money where our mouths are, so we’re doing it right now! Regular subscribers might recall that we started a Ko-Fi tip jar to save toward bee costumes for our trip to the London Podcast Festival in 2026. Forget the bee costumes! We’ll make them work! We’d love it if you donated instead to the ISC, which is in a key fundraising stage of its existence. Just click the button below to go to the donation page, where one-time or monthly options in any amount are available. Questions for Readers(Hop on over to the segment web page to leave us your answers.)* What can the Institute for Sustained Creativity do for you? (NOTE—IT’S INTERNATIONAL! NO MATTER YOUR LOCATION IN THE WORLD, THIS QUESTION IS FOR YOU.)Segment LinksThe Institute for Sustained Creativity - ISCLink to the Living and Sustaining a Creative Life website (and series).Last Artist Standing: Living and Sustaining a Creative Life over 50: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/L/bo246026942.htmlConversation between Sharon Louden and James Campbell of Intellect Books, the publisher of the Living and Sustaining a Creative Life series: A story about Sharon and ISC at the New Yorker magazine in a sponsored post by Lincoln Financial: https://www.newyorker.com/sponsored/story/sharon-louden-a-lifetime-of-championing-working-artistsLink to the fantastic video made about Sharon during that project: https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/sustaining-creativity-for-a-lifetimeSharon's page at her Chicago gallery: https://www.engage-projects.com/sharon-louden-bio.htmlTHE AMAZING RUBY LERNER: https://www.rubylerner.com/Conflict Kitchen: https://www.conflictkitchen.org/A blog post on the Vancouver restaurant Pat mentions—Pho Duy: https://vieamaggi.com/food/pho-duy-restaurant/Thanks for listening to Gifted Underachievers! This post is public so feel free to share it.If you aren’t already a subscriber, we’d love to have you in the GU Clubhouse! No spam, unsubscribe any time. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit giftedunderachievers.substack.com