Before Dawn

Creature Before Dawn, by Ryan Piers Williams, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 30” x 40”, 2025

I’ve been feeling it. Have you? That dreadful feeling that sinks in just after waking up. The voice that greets you more quickly than the coffee cup reaches your lips. What awful thing will happen today?

It’s hard to look—and even harder not to—as our democracy is chipped away, our civil liberties stripped, and our most vulnerable continue to be violated. Like many of you, I’ve become fixated on the news. I listen to too many podcasts, read all the articles, and fret about so many things that are frankly out of my control. Yes, there are things I can do to challenge the authoritarian takeover sweeping our country, but allowing it to paralyze me with despair is not the answer. Perhaps working with the feeling is.

As a father, I find myself in situations where my children get stuck in similar feelings. They are consumed with despair when they see the healthy breakfast I’ve made, when the only pair of clean socks feels too itchy on their feet, or when I tell them they have swim class even though we all know they love it. My kiddos’ particularities don’t carry the same weight as our democracy being smashed, but their feelings of despair in these situations are as real to them as mine are to me. When they get caught in these moments, I’m blinded by the intensity, I brace myself for the rollercoaster and hope I make it to the other side without more gray hair or, at the very least, get them to school on time.

One morning, as they were caught in a spiral, something changed. Instead of trying to make them feel better, I let them feel all their feelings. When there was a pause, I started telling them a story. It involved a couple of children on an impossible mission, a dragon, and bodily fluids—real highbrow stuff. Quickly, something magical happened. They relaxed. Then they listened, laughed, and began squirming along to the foul and insane story that spilled out of my mouth.

Let’s be clear, I wasn’t fully aware of what I was doing at the time. If I’m being honest, I was just trying to distract them long enough to wiggle them into their itchy socks. I realized later that what I was actually doing was clumsily threading together a story that matched the challenging feelings they were wrestling with moments before. To my surprise, as the characters navigated their way through a tricky situation, so did my kids. It was a tiny miracle. My children’s angst dissipated, and so did mine. And possibly even more miraculously, we all felt more connected to each other.

This moment reminded me of the power of creativity to transform everyone who engages with it, from the audience to the creator. As we witness so many of our traditional forms of communication failing us, I’ve come to believe that art may be the only arena where we are still open to being transformed by one another. And if this is true, it will take steady-handed artists and engaged audiences to create the change we need.

What if we start right now? I created the creature in this post while working with my feelings of despair. Making the painting Creature Before Dawn helped me process the chaos in the world. If it resonates with you, I invite you to use it to channel your feelings. Open your journal and write about where you feel despair in your life. What does it look like, feel like, sound like? Draw it. Paint it. If it were alive, how would it move? If you’re able, get up and move like it. Give it a sound. After you’ve explored the feeling, create something and share it with someone else.

Every morning, I’m reminded of my creative life, and how fortunate I am to live one. As lucky as I feel, it’s discipline that has sustained me. Over the last couple of decades, I’ve built a creative practice that has carried me through the highs of inspired flow and the lows of feeling like I have nothing to contribute. In an upcoming series, I’ll share what I’ve discovered about building and sustaining a creative practice. I’ll take you from the moment I slow down in the morning to the final moments of making a creative work and everything in between.

In the darkness of our despair, let us ignite our creativity to guide us toward dawn. Whether you’ve been creating for decades or you’re just starting on your journey, I invite you to strengthen your creative practice along with me.