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 are about to open! We begin in February, 2025.
Introducing Brilliant Playmates
A sanctuary for your creative soul.
For artists of all kinds.
Whether you are a dancer, musician, writer, painter, potter, blacksmith, weaver, filmmaker, or your creativity takes some other wonderful forms, we welcome you here.
Cross-pollination between artists working in different forms is part of what makes Brilliant Playmates unique. And thrilling.
We are also committed to creating a safe, welcoming space for adults of all colors, genders, backgrounds, and sexual preferences, and to learning and growing from our diversity.
A playground of delight, wonder, and ease where your creative dreams can blossom.
This monthly membership and year-long menu of delectable explorations is designed to help you:
♥ Fall in love with your art, yourself, and your muse again and again
♥ Open to a powerful flow of inspiration
♥ Cultivate your unique gifts and passions
♥ Make time and space for what you love
♥ Let yourself play and experiment
♥ Bring your creative dreams to satisfying fruition
♥ Experience the safety, encouragement, and support that creativity needs to flourish
We create, inspire, and grow together, so that we can shine in our art and our lives.
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 or thrown off course.
Or you hit a roadblock. You’re not sure of your next steps. Or if what you’re creating is any good.
Does your art matter? Does anyone want it? Why bother making these things? What’s my next step?
When you become a Brilliant Playmate…
You are saying yes to your unique creative spark that is longing for expression. You are saying yes to your heart and soul.
And you are granting yourself the inspiration, support, structure, and companionship that creativity thrives in.
When you nourish these parts of yourself, your life lights up and becomes a thing of beauty 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!
How it works
The new Brilliant Playmates is designed as a year-long course that can be repeated indefinitely to provide the inspiration, delight, structure, feedback, and companionship to lead a profound, fulfilling creative life.
You are encouraged, but not required, to make a year-long commitment to get the most from this carefully-designed program and to experience the true richness of this program and community.
Doors open only once 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 around 20 artists to allow us 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.
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 —We introduce the new Themes of the month (with an Outer Play focus, an Inner Play focus, and optional homeplay invitations to bring these alive in your life). We explore these themes together, check in on our creative dreams, and set new steps for the month ahead.
♥ Community Open Mic—Share your works-in-progress and completed work and get loving, supportive feedback. You also get to see, hear, experience the extraordinary talents of our community. Inspiring and fun!
♥ A rotating mix of
Playdates—Workshops where we create together, exploring various art forms, learning new skills or modalities and just playing! Art is meant to be joyful.
Q&A—where you can bring your burning questions and revelations and draw on the inspired support of our Brilliant Playmates. Priceless!
Co-playing sessions—We come together to make time for our individual projects. Working alongside one another creates a strong container in which an amazing amount gets done easefully.
Deeper Dives—A chance to get detailed, constructive feedback on your work-in-progress and learn Critical Response Process, a beautiful, deeply supportive tool for helping creative work to shine.
Special events, workshops, and additional co-playing sessions may be added as we go.
Every sixth month is an Integration month, in which our regularly schedule sessions are suspended to give you time to catch your breath and integrate all you’ve learned and explored so far. Integration months may feature Co-Playing Sessions or a Community Gathering but no new themes are introduced. It’s a sacred pause.
When and Where
Our regularly scheduled sessions take place on THURSDAYS 11:00 am – 12:30 pm PACIFIC TIME on Zoom.
To find out when that is in your time zone, click here: www.worldtimebuddy.com
It’s like a gym membership for your creative life. Come as often as you like. Come as you are.
All sessions (except co-playing sessions) are recorded for later viewing and all handouts and playbooks are available in our online library.
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 receive…
♥ All Our Sessions—community gatherings, workshops, co-playing sessions, deeper dives, and open mics. The regular cadence of sessions keeps you creating and sharing your art and finding joy in the process.
♥ Monthly Creativity Igniter. Each month you receive a downloadable playbook with the month’s Creativity Igniter with an outer play and inner play focus and creative sparks to play with to help keep you inspired, growing, and sharing your art.
♥ Our online forum. A private, safe space online to share your celebrations, challenges, questions, and your art! Get immediate, helpful feedback, have fertile conversations, make friends and find collaborators, arrange additional gatherings,
♥ 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 and available on our online forum. 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.
Joy is the ground of our Brilliant Playground. Coupled with attention, encouragement, and inspired community.
In that soulful ground, magic can happen.
Come join our Playground and see how it transforms your creativity and your life!
Become a Brilliant Playmate!
Doors open very soon! We begin in February.
“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!
REGISTRATION CLOSES JANUARY 31.
Choose carefully. There are no refunds once you register.
NOTE: If you choose to receive the 6-month or 12-month discount, you are committing to paying for the entire time, whether or not you attend. If you choose to pay monthly, you are financially committed for the entire time period. Payments will be deducted automatically. We cannot accomodate check or cash payments unless you are paying annually in full.
BIPOC Discount: To promote diversity in our community and as a form of reparations, we offer a pay-what-you-can rate for BIPOC. Email me for that option (max [at] brilliantplayground [dot] com)
Scholarships: We offer a limited number of partial scholarships for low-income folks. Email me for that option (max [at] brilliantplayground [dot] com)
TIER 1
12-month commitment
$70/month
TIER 1
Annual membership – $840
single payment
TIER 2
6-month commitment
$80/month
TIER 2
Annual membership –$960
single payment
TIER 3
month-to-month, no commitment
$90/month
If you choose this level, you will have the option to choose Tier 2 for the second six months of the year.
F.A.Q.
- When do we meet?
Our regularly scheduled sessions are on THURSDAYS FROM 11:00 AM TO 12:30 PM PACIFIC TIME (find out when that is in your time zone here). We may add special events and more co-playing sessions 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, or a flourishing professional, you will find juicy inspiration, deep community, and practical 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 to know the other artists and are an active member of our community. There are no required assignments, though I will make suggestions of things to spark your creativity and help you get clear on your individual goals and steps. - How do I access the materials?
Everything will live in our shared Google drive online. - Does my subscription renew automatically?
Your subscription will be set to automatically renew near the beginning of each month. 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 and giving us 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. If you sign up for the monthly membership, your cancellation will be processed at the end of that month.
Ready to join us? Magic happens here!
