About us
Tired of small talk and tech-bro culture? Longing to expand creatively in a community that encourages big dreams, growth, and change? Want to find your voice and support others as they find themselves too?
Welcome!! Let’s GOOOOOO!!!!
The Creative Friendship Lab encourages people from all walks of life to explore the rich emotional and social world around them, while pursuing individual and shared creative projects. Our Lab invites both serious artists and just-budding amateurs to come enjoy our events and experiments!
We host creative writing workshops, drawing nights, photography scavenger hunts, and other collaborative challenges where people can make new friends. We also host quiet time for artists to dive deeper into in-progress projects, in an atmosphere supportive of parallel work and play.
Whether you’re just starting to explore your own creativity or you’ve been committed to it for decades, we hope you’ll join us in welcoming all members of this community in a spirit of vigorous encouragement, thoughtful engagement, and empathetic open-heartedness.
Guiding Principles
“I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves
"Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word ‘love’ here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” — James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
“In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.” – C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." — Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin
Statement of Inclusivity
The Creative Friendship Lab is an inclusive community space, and we particularly seek to protect and welcome our LGBTQIA+, queer, transgender, and nonbinary members. Event attendees may be asked to share their preferred pronouns and will be asked to respect the preferred pronouns shared by other participants. Immigrants, people of color, religious minorities, people with disabilities, and neurodivergent folks seeking a diverse community are also especially encouraged to attend!
Our events are offered on a donation basis to minimize financial barriers. Please consider making a donation if you would like to contribute to our mission, allow us to offer more meaningful events, and help defray the costs of our meetup.com hosting fees.
Or not! We appreciate the many ways in which everyone contributes to our community, whether via financial or other means—simply by showing up and being kind, you are doing a good thing :-)
About Me (Personally)
I'm a writer living in Austin with my dog, Cookie. If you're interested in following my thoughts, you can find me at https://substack.com/@rachelsummercheong I love long essays, fiction, and philosophy. I also like to draw and go out dancing.
Upcoming events
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Writing Workshop No.1 // Origin Stories
Central Market, 4001 N Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX, USTired of small talk and tech-bro culture? Longing to expand creatively in a community that encourages big dreams, growth, and change? Want to find your voice and support others as they find themselves too?
Welcome! The Creative Friendship Lab encourages people from all walks of life to explore the rich emotional and social world around them, while pursuing individual and shared creative projects. Our Lab invites both serious artists and just-budding amateurs to come enjoy our events and experiments!
This Week's Writing Workshop
For our very first event, we'll be meeting at Central Market at 2 PM on April 5th to explore the theme of origin stories. Every epic begins with a spark in darkness—from Prometheus stealing fire to the flash-bang explosion that produced Professor Utonium's Powerpuff Girls.
Spring is here, bringing a season of new growth and change. To celebrate its arrival, we invite you to join the Creative Friendship Lab in exploring how you got started—as a writer, as a human being. Whether you're still in your chrysalis or feel like you're spreading your butterfly wings, it never hurts to have a moment of appreciation for time spent spent caterpillar-dreaming.
The rough structure of our workshop will be as follows:
- Saying hello to each other
- Introducing the writing prompt
- Independent free-writing
- Sharing a couple lines from your writing in small groups
- Option for 2-3 people to share with the big group
Thank you in advance for contributing your unique perspective to our workshop! Whether you’re just starting to explore your own creativity or you’ve been committed to it for decades, we hope you’ll join us in welcoming all members of this community in a spirit of vigorous encouragement, thoughtful engagement, and empathetic open-heartedness.
Creative Friendship Lab's Guiding Principles
“I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves"Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word ‘love’ here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” — James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
“In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.” – C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." — Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin
Statement of Inclusivity
The Creative Friendship Lab is an inclusive community space, and we particularly seek to protect and welcome our LGBTQIA+, queer, transgender, and nonbinary members. Event attendees may be asked to share their preferred pronouns and will be asked to respect the preferred pronouns shared by other participants. Immigrants, people of color, religious minorities, people with disabilities, and neurodivergent folks seeking a diverse community are also especially encouraged to attend!
Our events are offered on a donation basis to minimize financial barriers. Please consider making a donation if you would like to contribute to our mission, allow us to offer more meaningful events, and help defray the costs of our meetup.com hosting fees.
Or not! We appreciate the many ways in which everyone contributes to our community, whether via financial or other means—simply by showing up and being kind, you are doing a good thing :-)
About Me (Personally)
I'm a writer living in Austin with my dog, Cookie. If you're interested in following my thoughts, you can find me at https://substack.com/@rachelsummercheong I love long essays, fiction, and philosophy. I also like to draw and go out dancing.
11 attendees
