Brilliant Playmates
Creative Community & Membership Program
Imagine being a part of a vibrant, joyful community of artists
One that helps you reach your creative aspirations and have deep fun while you do.
Doors open once or twice a year. Sign up for the waitlist to hear when they open again.
Are you?
- Yearning to make more time and space for your art?
- Seeking feedback, encouragement, and camaraderie on your creative projects?
- Needing structure, support, and accountability to realize your creative dreams?
If you’re an imaginative, soulful, heart-centered artist…
You know you have to keep making art, growing, and sharing your art in order to thrive.
Perhaps you’ve forgotten that…
The number one thing established artists talk about benefiting from is creative community.
Creative community means trusted friends, advisors, mentors, collaborators, and peers that draw out the best in you and help you get where you want to go. The ones who give you valuable, loving feedback and connect you to ideas, resources, and opportunities. The ones who inspire you to open new vistas.
We need this as artists.
It’s hard to create in isolation. Without anyone responding to your art. Without anyone to ask questions of or share your ups and downs with. Without the magic of community.
Introducing Brilliant Playmates
A sanctuary for your creative soul.
For artists of all kinds.
♥ Be a part of a vibrant, welcoming community that supports and inspires you and offers helpful feedback on your works-in-progress and your creative aspirations.
♥ Receive the structure, support, and accountability you need to follow through on your creative dreams, one step at a time.
♥ Tap into inspiration, new learning, and helpful resources to hone your creations and share them with the world. Remarkable progress happens in our community.
♥ Get lit up by other artists, working in a wide variety of media, genres, and styles, at all stages of their creative lives. Find collaborators and friends.
Brilliant Playmates brings together creators of all kinds to inspire, share, and grow together, so that we can shine in our art and our lives.
Whether you are a dancer, musician, writer, painter, potter, DJ, blacksmith, weaver, filmmaker, or your creativity takes some other form, we welcome you here.
We are all about cross-pollination between artists working in different forms. This creates a dynamic creative environment unlike any other. So many spaces are only for artists working in one particular medium. Brilliant Playmates is special. And thrilling.
We are committed to creating a safe, welcoming space for people of all colors, genders, ages, abilities, and sexual preferences, and to learning and growing from our diversity. Please join us!
You think you should be able to do it by yourself.
But after a while, you begin to lose steam. Inspiration wanes. Doubt creeps in. You get distracted by life.
Maybe you take on too many projects and spin out. Or you hit a roadblock.
You’re not sure of your next steps. Or if what you’re creating is any good. Where do you go?
You need someone to talk to openly about where you are and where you’re headed. Someone to share your work with and hear how it lands. Access to ideas, resources, and peers to help you on your way.
That’s what Brilliant Playmates gives you.
When you become a Brilliant Playmate…
You are saying yes to your unique creative spark that is longing for expression.
You grant yourself the inspiration, support, structure, and companionship that creativity thrives in.
When you nourish these parts of yourself, your life lights up and becomes blessing for yourself and others.
Following your bliss infuses your life with aliveness, inspiration, delight, and deep fulfillment. It’s a gift to yourself and our aching world.
“Don’t ask what the world needs.
Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.
Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
– Howard Thurman, philosopher, educator, and civil rights leader
Welcome to Brilliant Playmates!
A creative community and membership for artists and creators of all kinds
To help you thrive, shine, and create your best art. Joyfully.
Here’s what you receive
We hold regular sessions three times a month, each with a different format, to keep you inspired, connected to your heart’s dreams, doing what you love, getting valuable feedback, and sharing with others in fulfilling ways.
Those featured sessions include:
♥ Creativity Igniter
On the first Friday of each month, we dive into our monthly Creativity Igniter—a theme, focus, and/or challenge to keep you growing in your creative life. We have guided meditations to keep you deeply connected to your muse, small breakout groups to explore the new Igniter and meet creative friends, and we check in on our past month’s creativity and set our focus for the month ahead. There’s also time for Q&A to get your pressing questions answered.
♥ Co-playing Sessions
On the second Friday of each month, we hop on Zoom together to move our creative projects and pursuits forward. Make time for your art and blast through blocks with the power of the group. We check-in around what we intend to work on or play with during this time, then we go off and do our thing for an hour and hop back on at the end to check in around how it went. These sessions have proved so powerful and delightful for getting things done and making space for creativity in our lives.
♥ Community Open Mic
On the third Friday of each month, we have an inspiring open mic to share your works-in-progress (or completed), receive helpful, encouraging feedback, and get inspired by one another.
♥ Seasonal Creative Life Review
Once every three months, we come together to check in around our creative projects, goals, and dreams, celebrate and honor the season that is ending and gain radical clarity to guide us through the season ahead, so that we keep moving towards our creative dreams and living the lives that are most fulfilling to us.
♥ Plus! Deeper Dive Creative Response Sessions, Special Events and Playshops
Get in-depth feedback on your art projects, learn new skills and play with new techniques, meet other artists, and have fun!
♥ Every sixth month is an Integration month
We suspend some of our regularly scheduled sessions to give you time to integrate. Integration months feature Co-Playing Sessions and our Seasonal Review, but no new themes are introduced. It’s a sacred pause.
When and Where
Our regularly scheduled sessions take place on FRIDAYS FROM 1:00 – 2:30 pm PACIFIC TIME on Zoom. To find out when that is in your time zone, click here: www.worldtimebuddy.com
We have special events and workshops at various days and times so you can learn new skills, share your art, get new inspiration, and have fun!
It’s like a gym membership for your creative life. Come as often as you like. All sessions (except co-playing sessions) are recorded for later viewing and all handouts and playbooks are available in our online library.
Doors open twice a year, so that we can form a strong, supportive community of loving, diverse artists. Our year begins in February, around the time of the lunar new year and Imbolc. Our final integration month and celebration is the following January.
Membership will be limited to 23 artists to allow us to come to know and trust one another while at the same time making space for a variety of art forms, styles, and people that provides richness and depth. Diversity and intimacy—the best of community.
Brilliant Playmates will help you:
- Discover what lights you up and calls to you
- Honor and hone your unique gifts
- Make creativity a joyful habit in your life
- Break big dreams into easeful, inviting steps
- Let go of perfectionism and quiet the inner critic
- Release resistance and the fear of being seen
- Bring your creative projects to fulfilling fruition
- Share your art with others who appreciate it
- Get encouragement, inspiration, and feedback all along the way
You also receive…
♥ Monthly Creativity Igniter
Each month you receive a downloadable playbook with the month’s Creativity Igniter with a focus, theme, and creative sparks to play with to help keep you inspired, growing, and sharing your art.
♥ Our online forum, the heart of our community. A private, safe space to connect and share our triumphs, challenges, questions, and inspirations without the noise of social media. Ah!
Get helpful feedback, have fertile conversations, share resources, make friends and find collaborators, share your art, and even arrange additional events both on and offline.
This is here for you 24/7 to get your questions answered, share your steps forward, celebrate milestones, get support through your challenges, and learn from what other artists are doing and discovering.
♥ The profound benefits of a mentor and facilitator with 20+ years of experience teaching and coaching artists to express their gifts and realize their dreams.
♥ The genius of creative hive mind. Members have a wealth of experience in the arts and have organized co-playing sessions, given virtual studio tours, and offered workshops and events both on- and off-line to share their expertise and passions with the community.
♥ All sessions are recorded. If you miss a session or wish to watch again at a different time, you can!
♥ The profound benefits of being a part of a loving community of artists. No more going it alone.
This is priceless. Community is how people grow, transform, and reach their dreams most quickly and joyfully. When we come together, we all blossom.
Joy is the ground of our Brilliant Playground. Coupled with attention, encouragement, and inspired community.
Our values are rooted in Honoring, Ease, Joy, Play, and Openness.
In that soulful ground, magic can happen.
If you’d like to read our collective Agreements, you can find them here.
Come join our Playground and see how it transforms your creativity and your life!
Become a Brilliant Playmate!
Doors only open twice a year.
“It has been an extremely supportive community. Even if from time to time I couldn’t join, the commitment I made with myself and the group triggered something in the subconscious that made my relationship to creativity the most important one. It has been very powerful.”
– Naima Pagano
“I joined Brilliant Playmates so that I would be encouraged and supported to produce more of my art. It was a success! I feel I am working on my designs and producing new products (my art) at a rapid pace. Even though my art—survival tools and knives—are kind of niche art form, I still feel seen, appreciated, and supported by everyone in our group. I look forward to being a part of this community for many years to come.”
– Robert Weir
“I have been part of Maxima Kahn‘s Brilliant Playmates group for its first six months…. Being part of a group of artists (of whatever kind – writers, painters, inventors, filmmakers, musicians, dancers, etc!) has such huge potential for us to support each other’s work and vision and adventure: accountability; sharing our dreams; having our dreams believed in; witnessing our fellow artists keeping going; sharing our difficulties; sharing our successes – all these things, for me, help me keep going.
If you’re looking for a supportive community, this just might be it! And, for myself – having been part of this for its first six months – I would so love to see it grow! Exponentially! I have found so much support for my art life through being part of a community of artists.”
– Eileen Hale
“Jolts of inspiration, energy, and insight come to me from sharing the creative process in this community of artists. The more we get to know each other, the more I respect my colleagues in the Brilliant Playmates. Our kinds of art are not alike, but the challenges and rewards we face are surprisingly similar.”
– Adam Frey
Join us and activate your creative life!
Note: There are no refunds once you register.
We ask for a six-month commitment from all members. If you choose to pay monthly, you are committing to the six months, whether or not you attend. Payments will be deducted automatically. We cannot accommodate check or cash payments unless you are paying in full.
BIPOC Discount: To promote diversity in our community and as a form of reparations, we offer a discounted rate for BIPOC: $30 per month. If you are Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color, you can email me here for that option (or max [at] brilliantplayground [dot] com).
Scholarships: We offer a limited number of partial scholarships ($30/month) for low-income folks. Email me here for that option (or max [at] brilliantplayground [dot] com). We want you with us.
6-month commitment
$60/month, paid monthly
6-month membership –$300
single payment, save $60!
This program is for you if…
- You long for structure and support to help you do more of what you love and get it out in the world.
- You could benefit from loving, constructive feedback or brilliant suggestions when you get stuck or just from the thrilling creative ferment of a group of artists.
- You are looking to keeping growing as an artist.
- You are intrigued by the fertile cross-pollination of ideas between artists of different art forms.
- You’d love to have a place to celebrate your achievements and get encouragement and clarity when you lose your way.
- You would love to be a part of an amazing community of artists, helping each other reach their dreams.
F.A.Q.
- When do we meet?
Our regularly scheduled sessions are on Fridays from 1:00 – 2:30 pm Pacific Time (find out when that is in your time zone here). We may add special events at various days and times. - How do we meet?
All of our sessions are live on Zoom and also recorded for you to watch or listen to later. - Do I need to attend all of the sessions to be a part of this?
Nope! The sessions will be recorded, so you can listen later. And if you don’t have time to listen later, no problem. You are not required to attend any sessions, though you’re encouraged to come to as many as you can! The community is here for you when you can make it. And when you’re busy, just tune in when you can. - Do I need to be a professional artist to be a part of this?
Absolutely not. Artists and creative beings at any stage of your creative life or career are welcome and encouraged. Whether you are exploring new art forms, a passionate amateur (a word which means “lover”), or a professional artist, you will find juicy inspiration, deep community, and deeply grounded tools to keep you thriving. I have found through years of teaching that non-hierarchical groups form the most powerful creative containers. - Do I have to share my art with the group?
You don’t have to do anything you don’t feel drawn to do. There are invitations and opportunities of many kinds to share your work, to share your process, to ask your questions, and more, but what you do is up to you. - Is this just for visual artists?
No. This is for creative people of all kinds—visual artists, writers, musicians, dancers, performers, filmmakers, craftspeople, gardeners, cooks, you name it. If it’s creative, bring it! We want to support you. - What’s the time commitment?
There is no specific amount of time you need to commit to this. I highly recommend you attend as many of the live sessions as possible, so that you get the most from your investment. There are no required assignments, though I will offer Creativity Igniters to spark your creativity, deepen your relationship with your muse, and help you reach your creative aspirations. - How do I access the materials?
We have a shared online community where everything lives. - Does my subscription renew automatically?
Your subscription will be set to automatically renew around the same time each month that you registered. We cannot accommodate special requests for a different payment schedule. - What if I need to cancel my membership?
You can cancel at any time by emailing us. Please allow 3 business days to process your request. There are no refunds for any portion of time that you paid for or committed to. If you sign up for the yearly or six-month membership to get the discount, your cancellation will be processed at the end of that time frame and you’ll continue to have access through then. If you sign up for the monthly membership, your cancellation will be processed within 3 business days.
Ready to join us? Magic happens here!
