Barbara Bowen
NAPT
Free
Career Coach for Creative Professionals Expert
Barbara Bowen Quick Facts
- Main Areas
- Creative Process, Artist Career Development, Writing/Photography
- Career Focus
- Coach/Consultant, Writer/Photographer
- Affiliation
- Corbis Agency, NY, Union Theological Seminary, NY
Barbara Bowen is a New York based professional writer/photographer and founder of Gateways Coaching and Gateways to Action. She has been deeply involved in artistic expression for over 20 years and a consultant to early and mid-career professionals for over ten years. In Chicago, Barbara owned and managed a successful 12-year photography business. She was immersed in theatre and film during those years, and many of her original scripts were staged. She has long been fascinated by the creative process itself and holds a 500-hour certification in healing arts through the National Association of Poetry Therapy. Her career experiences and training led her to develop a unique coaching method for professional artists and others in related fields. Clients are led to master the creative process for optimal results on the inner and outer levels.
Gateways Coaching helps clients to harness their creativity for optimal results, to sharpen presentation and marketing tools, and to bridge career transition successfully. The method is goal-oriented. While addressing thematic challenges of the creative process on the inner level, Gateways has expanded throughout the years to include coaching services related to presentation and marketing. As clients gain insight, they are led to develop action plans of sensible risk toward new goals, on their own terms. Each step forward is supported by momentum-building tools, custom designed to client needs. Gateways Coaching was originally inspired by Jungian psychology, Robert Fritz and other mavericks of creativity, as filtered through the lens of founder Barbara Bowen's career life and training.
Barbara frequently publishes articles and essays on the creative process as it relates to career transition and global change. Her photography is represented by Corbis Agency, New York (Solus Collection.) Her professional experiences and study in creative process led to her blog, Gateways to Action , a meeting place for those on the defining lines of global change. For more on Barbara's background, see:
Articles by this expert
SelfGrowth articles and saved writing connected to this expert.
Article
Art Presentation: Artist Statement-Bio-Resume-Proposal
“If you aim for a market you’ll miss the mark.” Whoever said that, I’m a believer. It’s no good looking over the shoulder at what strangers prefer before creating. True inspiration is the optimal motivator. Quality issues from there, and its purity taps the nerves of audience attraction. n ...
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Article
Artist Career Support: Performance Under Pressure
Artist career support involves the inner level of creating as well as the outer level of marketing. The inner level is key during times of stress. There is no point in struggling with thoughts that rush in during these times. Thoughts themselves are not the issue. The issue is how we choose to ...
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Article
Creativity: Enhancement and Renewal
No matter how we approach New Year’s Eve--with dazzling exuberance, quiet reserve or indifference--it’s hard to escape the sense that another cycle of life has ended and a new one begun. We navigate the portal from 2008 into 2009, trying to catch our collective breath. But the passage seems ...
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Article
Renewal: Martin Luther King and Barack Obama
What hardest of hearts could resist the voice of justice calling down the corridors of conscience in the satin tremolo of our American Dr. Martin Luther King? My indelible moment was unde eath the Lincoln memorial with my now-deceased parents, my sister-in-law and eldest brother. It was a ...
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Article
Artists, Carl Jung And Creativity
The Gateways artist coaching method employs universal themes identified by creativity psychology, notably themes revealed in the work of Carl Gustav Jung. Universal themes help to enhance creativity and career growth by mirroring an artist's inner and outer challenges. They help art ...
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Article
Leadership And Fear
In life's creative process, fear is inescapable. We meet various shades of fear upon entering any unfamiliar territory. At its best, fear will act as a friend, jumpstarting dreams to create beneficial reality. But it has other manifestations too. It can stop us in our tracks. Or, when out ...
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Article
Art Careers In Transition
It's hard to change, at first. When change is calling, artists often needs support in navigating the pull of two different directions. We artists want to answer the call, but we also prefer to stay in familiar territory--precisely because it is familiar. The circumstances of our creative ...
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Article
Actualizing Spirituality Through Creativity
The Creative Process is the fundamental dynamic of all innovation in every field and discipline. It can be actualized for good or ill, but this essay chooses to place focus on its positive values and connection to the arts, healing and spirituality. Creativity is often misunderstood to be an ...
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Article
Abundant Power Of The Creative Voice
When it comes to Creativity, the Creative Voice is infinitely more powerful than the Critical Voice. This statement is often hard for artists and other creatives to absorb, especially if their Critic has been in the lead, either consciously or unconsciously. But our intuitive center is always ...
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Article
Creative Genius Of Thomas Jefferson
The creative process is the fundamental key to all innovation in every field of endeavor. We humans yearn for the quality of experience that hurls us into the unbounded world of imagination, beyond the curtains of time. The act of creating gives form to the inner life, brings spirit into matter. ...
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Article
After Goal Setting Comes Resistance
As a creativity coach and artist, I encounter goal setting issues daily. When it comes to setting career goals and keeping things on track, the word "discipline" can present problems. Webster defines the word in these terms: a systematic method to obtain obedience; submission to rules and ...
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Article
Art Careers And Creative Growth
Creativity is in perpetual evolution. So is the creative growth of your art career. The learning process never ends. Many of us have trouble letting our Creativity simply spill. We get tied into knots, worrying that our purges may not measure up. Well, pardon my asking, but...measure up to what? ...
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Favorite Quotes & Thoughts from Barbara Bowen
Gateways Philosophy: We live in a society which often fails to nurture the creative aspects of our nature. Systems--educational, religious, corporate and family--are useful for their contribution to social order. However, when systems become rigid they cease to be life-giving and rarely foster the creative process. In fact, they often become life-depleting.The flow of creativity and its disruption is a cycle composed of thematic aspects. These themes may be disce
ed and addressed according to individual need. Over the years, Gateways Coaching has developed a comprehensive program that strives to help clients on the inner levels of creative process and the outer levels of presentation and marketing. Clients are guided to strike a balance between creative/art career demands and personal fulfillment. And to achieve success on their own terms. Whether you are a professonal artist, working in a related creative career, or simply wish to pursue a new creative goal, your obstacles can become "gateways" to deeper alignment with creative calling. (See How Does Gateways Work?)
Contacting Barbara Bowen
Contact me:
Artist and Creative Career Coaching:
Meet the Creative Agents of Global Change:
For a standard complimentary coaching consultation:
email: GatewaysCoaching@earthlink.net
For a focused advisory consultation on your
work or career direction for $75.00 email:
How to get started
See my Web site for an in-depth profile: Contact me for your Complimentary Consultation: GatewaysCoaching@earthlink.net What is Gateways Coaching? Gateways is a coaching method designed for artists and other creative professionals in transition. The method is goal-oriented and addresses familiar thematic challenges of the creative process and issues of presentation and marketing.