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Creative Conversation with Camille Seaman

Camille Seaman is a photographer whose work focuses on the fragile environments, extreme weather, and stark beauty of the natural world. Her work has been featured globally in publications, including National Geographic and TIME and The New York Times. She has won many awards, is a Senior TED Fellow as well as a Stanford Knight Fellow.

I was captivated with Camille’s work when I interviewed her on my YouTube show but I was also struck by her deep spiritual connection to the world as a Shinnecock Native American, and wanted to find out more.

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What’s been successful in terms of adding creativity to your life?

That is a hard thing for me to even speak about because I think I am creative by nature. I describe myself to people as a compulsive creative and it means that I have to be doing something fun and I’m always making something. I’m always curious. If I’m not knitting, I’m making furniture or doing beadwork or photography or film. I don’t compartmentalize between not being creative and the rest of my life. And that’s why that quote in your preface about mastering the art of living resonated so well with me.

Are there any common misconceptions that you’d like to dispel in terms of creativity or being an artist?

Many people approach me and want advice. It seems to me that they think there’s a formula like you do A plus B and you will reach C. I never saw life like that. I always understood from a very young age that I am the author of my life. It doesn’t have to be done a certain way in order for it to be the right way for me and what works for me may not work for the next person.

And so my advice to people who are interested in furthering their creative career, whether that’s in the arts of any kind or just living more fully and authentically, I tell them, “know thy self.” To take the time to figure out who they are and what makes them happy and what makes them unhappy. Because when you have those—that self-awareness—it’s so much easier to avoid the pitfalls that make you unhappy. For me personally, “unhappy” is being stuck and hobbled. If I’m told that I cannot do something, that’s like a death sentence. There is always a way for me to do it.

People thought I was crazy. Even moving to Ireland, everyone was asking, “Why would you do that?” And I said, “Well, why not? I’ve never done it.” I think that as humans we allow ourselves to become so comfortable and so complacent, so set in our routines and on our “rails,” and we just accept that they’re going in a direction—without trying to author that direction or influence it ourselves with what makes us happy or curious. It’s so sad to me that many people I come across have no curiosity; they just want to swallow whatever’s fed them and that’s enough, I can’t imagine that kind of life.

I was very lucky as part of the TED Fellowship, we were mentored by the people at Creative Capital, which is an Andy Warhol foundation. One of the exercises they gave us—it was brutal and powerful—was to sit down and write our obituary. To write what you want to be said about you at the end of your life when you’re not even close to it is a very powerful experience.

What are some of the barriers that you’ve had to overcome to lead your amazingly creative life?

I think most of the actual barriers are self-imposed. It’s our own thought process and voice that says, Who are you to think you can do this? or Who are you to think that that’s available to you? Again, the first step of knowing yourself and understanding that, when you truly do, you’ll know that you are capable of anything and everything. Nothing is impossible except what you tell yourself is impossible. Once you know yourself, that second step is really gaining control of those inner voices, that inner dialogue, because that’s the only thing stopping you. People say, “Oh yeah, what about money and bills and responsibilities and practical things?” If you are truly true to yourself, those things will be taken care of.

It’s not that it’s about money, but it’s about that inner voice that says that you are not worthy or you do not deserve, or how dare you think that you have the audacity to demand a living wage or to thrive instead of struggle. It goes back to point one, if you don’t know yourself, how can you understand that you are unique in this universe and there is a place for you? I think personally that the whole purpose of our existence is, just like the universe itself, to expand and create and to flourish. I don’t think that it’s supposed to be as painful, especially in the creative world, as we make it for ourselves.

What advice do you have for someone who wants to put art and creativity into their whole life?

I tend to sound extreme on this because I was raised to go big or go home and I don’t think that anything done in half measures or half steps is ever going to give you the result, or the feeling that one is seeking. My advice to anyone who wants to live a more creative and fulfilling life that they feel is more purposed and meaningful, inevitably they’re going to have to leap. Maybe you don’t leap all at once. Maybe baby steps into the pool and you put in your 10,000 hours of painting, drawing, photography, or whatever it is, music, dance, writing. You put those hours in while you’re doing other stuff that is giving you something to push against. Because when you’re unhappy, that can be fuel to propel you away from that unhappiness.

If you’re not ready to leap, then use that unhappiness as a push, like in a swimming pool when you push off the wall. Use that to propel yourself away from that unhappiness. Know that when you get up at six in the morning, because it’s the only free time you have to write or practice your violin, that is fuel pushing you away from the unhappiness. And then, one day, hopefully you’ll see that you’re ready to leap.

As a native American, you told me you view objects that most people consider inanimate as actually living. How does this influence your creativity?

My grandfather died when I was thirteen, of cancer. Before he died, he called each one of us grandchildren into the room with him. He said this to me, “You are billions of years in the making and there is no one like you. You are born of this time, for this time and you carry the wisdom and strength of your ancestors with you and you can access that at any time. You are not alone. Your job is to figure out how you will serve and when you figure that out, you should do that.” He believed all of us lived in service to each other. Even a king, if they’re doing it right, lives in service to their subjects, and our president should be in service to the people and so on.

We are always reminded that we are part of and must remain humble and respectful of all of our relatives, whether it’s a cat, dog, bird, fish, tree, plant, or flower. Those are all our relations and when you walk through life seeing everything as your relative, it’s much more difficult to do harm and it’s much easier to feel connected and inspired, rather than isolated, because connectedness versus isolation already implies a state of mental health.

More and more, I’ve been speaking with young people, teenagers to university age. And I challenge them immediately and ask, especially to the college kids, “Why are you here? Why did you just decide to stay on the rails and get a university degree?” Many of them haven’t ever stopped to ask themselves a question like that. And I always tell them, this is your life, this is your story. You get to write it. Not your parents. They had their chance, don’t live or do stuff for them. This is your chance. What do you want to do? I think a lot of older adults who are already on the track and rails don’t ever stop to say, “Why am I on these tracks and rails?”