Hello I’m Francesca, a voice and creative mentor

About me

I’M FRANCESCA,a multi-disciplinary artist, voice and creative mentor and socio-cultural change facilitator

WHAT I DO and stand for

I am interested (obsessed) in the intersections of voice, emotions, identity and artistry and how nurturing these things can shape and change culture.

I have a deep ache for myself and you to be able to share however we are feeling and show whatever we are creating and let it be more than enough.

This is why I create spaces to help us do that- to be in micro-cultures where we can truly be ourselves. To me this is an A.R.T., a reimagined way of being human; to be the aching raw truth of all parts of who we really are and not the perfect persona or certain version we thought we had to be.

I believe being a fully feeling expressed human being is an art.

I facilitate spaces for us all to unhook, re-humanise and get free. I hold a strong and tender charge to allow us to lean into our edges, de-armour our hearts so we can process and express all the sticky parts that are holding on and trying too hard.

I have seen and experienced so many humans be transformed by meeting and sharing their deep aches in different ways by saying what they have been aching to say and move through all the stuff standing in the way.

I hold brave, diverse non-hierarchical community spaces so we may hold and hear ourselves and each other in all of our raw, messy humanity. I encourage us to metabolise and mobilise the personal and collective emotional charge of what is hard by opening our hearts and making choices to hold new voices.

I know in my bones we all ache to create something, share something, stand for something.

“Inside us all is an ache to create.”

Watch my interview in July 2024 that was shown in the parliament as part of an urgent campaign called State of the Arts initiated by charity org Campaign for the Arts, who are advocating for much needed funding to be poured back into such a vital part of culture. I spoke on the impact the arts have had on my life, the value of full expression, and how I believe the arts should be accessible to everyone.

MAY WE MAKE ART FROM THAT CHARGE TO MOVE US FORWARD INTO A GENERATION OF ACHING, BURNING CHANGE- MAKING HEARTS!

My Mission & Vision

I am on a mission for you and me to be A.R.T. -the Aching Raw Truth of who we really are underneath who we thought we had to be. MAY WE CO-CREATE A CULTURE OF A.R.T.

In a world that has taught us to dehumanise and devalue parts of ourselves and others, to mask and disown parts of who we really are, it has created a culture cut off from its humanity, disconnected from nuance and diversity, stuck in survival cycles of vanity, emotional and creative repression, misdirected projection and oppression.

We have a collective responsibility to hold the emotional charge of our A.R.T.; to own all parts of who we were, who we are and who we ache to be and hold that tension in our hearts and make art.

We need to unfreeze the parts inside of us that weren’t allowed to or don’t know how to express where we ache; the ache of embarassment, shame, fear of judgement, fear of rejection, pain, grief and rage and move those frozen and frustrated aches into the regenerative ache of creating new pathways to thriving and feel what it really means to be fully alive in these times. May we lean into the sticky and sometimes charged conversations that hold every raw, hear every reality and honour everyone’s reality. I fully believe this will heal the great ache that separates us from ourselves and each other.

Let us shape micro and macro cultures of holding ourselves to a humanity of more emotionally expressive, creative, connected, mature human beings.

4 VALUES I LIVE BY:

1. RAW EXPRESSION

is to show all parts of who you really are, share how you really feel and say what you ache to say without trying to be somebody else, prove your worth or hold anything back, especially the parts you feel you ought to hide. We each have hearts that ache, voices that hold valuable truths with things to say, and inner artists that ache to express and create.

2.FULL HUMANITY

I ache for our world to rehumanise itself. I believe being fully human is an art. To be fully feeling, expressed, integrated human beings as an art calls us to meet, know, hold and own the darker and tender parts of ourselves; the achey places inside that feel unacceptable and unworthy and let them be known. These unseen, unfelt places inside of us are aching to come out of hiding into the light. I’m glaswegian and affectionately call it our ‘shite and our light’. We are both. And the things that we actually think are shite about ourselves are the wonderful wee quirks, vulnerabilities, complexities and hurts that makes us whole and human. I want more humans being human. We must hold humanity as a value in a way that has never been done before.

3. SUSTAINABLE ARTISTRY

I have learned the hard way time and time again the most sustainable thing I can be is myself and it is more than enough. I urge us to value sharing our messy, raw creative process as a much more interesting, realistic and sustainable form of artistry than any polished persona, or perfected final version could be. Like nature, I believe humans and artists need seasons of space to create for creation’s sake, a slower pace, rest, reflection and resources to enjoy and sustain the process of living and art making. For this to happen, artists need to value themselves and be valued for their immense contribution to socio-cultural wellbeing. This calls us to redefine and reimagine societal notions of success for artists. May we co-create a new thriving artist archetype that owns their worth, shows up, shares and stands in the value they serve and believes in what they have to offer. May we charge well for our art so we can look after our wellbeing as the foundation for more sustainable art making that is rooted in process over product, quality over quantity and nurturing our bodies. Let us disrupt the narrative that we need to do it all alone, perform or suffer for our art. It’s time for artists to feel healthy, resourced and supported in regenerative creative communities that centre sustainability, raw expression, connection, collaboration and support as non negotiable, vital values in art making.

4. A.R.T. FOR SOCIAL IMPACT

The more we practice A.R.T. by revealing what we really feel, saying what we ache to say, nurture and expand our capacity to make actual art from our aches, the more we will embody human-centric, socio-cultural well-being and change. Art is personal. Art is political. Art is collaborative, we can shift culture when we make art together. Art is emotional and vulnerable, it gives words to the wordless and expression to the inexpressible. Art roots us into more capable, resilient, nervous systems; it allows us to hold the brutal and beautiful parts of life at the same time. Art is disruptive and urges us to ask difficult questions so we can reimagine and redefine norms and systems. Art is progressive, it wakes us up, calls us to be curious, to see things in different ways and create new possibilities. Art is regenerative, it helps us to express and make something meaningful out of mess. Art is brave, it moves us to share our stories, lived experiences and things we usually wouldn’t have the courage to say. Art is cathartic and healing, it calls us to embody empathy for our human aches and lived experiences and invites us to honour and process the spectrum of the grief, horror, hope, joy, shite and light of being alive. Art moves us back into wholehearted connection. This to me is how we as a collective thrive.

insecure little Francesca in ballet class

Where It All Started for me

Since I was a little girl I have held a tension of feeling torn between two sides of myself; an outside self who aches to say what she wants to say, perform poetry, sing made up songs, dance, play, be bold and brave, and a more inside, deeply sensitive self who needs to be alone reflecting and writing in my own space, safe and cocooned in an inner cave. Both of these expressive and pensive sides are very real and treasured parts of who I was and still am.

But around age 7, the outside self started to feel an ache of feeling she had to hide away. A self consciousness took hold over my expressive, extroverted side as internalised shame. The beautiful little one you see with moles on her nose and cheek was shaken awake by her face not looking the same. People trying to scrape them away made me feel that I was not acceptable the way I was and the creative ache of my outer artistic expression was choked by second guessing and the emotional ache of feeling I was both too much and not enough. At age 13 I got them removed in a bid to prove I was worthy of affection. I stopped covering my face and hanging my head in shame. The external approval was a temporary form of self soothing. An inner voice of “I am unworthy” and the mask of perfection took hold and started to run the show…

dancing with my cousin on Halloween when I felt most joyful as a wee one

Where I’m Headed

I spent most of my teens, to my early 30s trying to outrun the shame of my little one. Until I wrote a song called Shame and a huge part of it fell away when I creatively expressed that ache. I’ve sung and performed my songs on many stages and stopped at different ages when the shame would catch up me with me. In 2017, when I wrote that song, instead of running away, I got to a breaking point where I was forced to stop trying to be somebody else and had to stay with myself. I collapsed for months in a dark depression and felt this horrendous feeling I had been repressing. I slowly began to hold the shame in my heart and let it have its way with me. I let myself be held by others who showed me how to hold this ache. I had no choice but to hold the voice that told me I had to be perfect and chose to hold it differently.

Art is my way of giving my aches a way. Making art through poetry and song is a way to feel and heal all the years I held myself back out of the fear of being truly seen as I am.

I am on a mission to give my little one permission to vulnerably, boldly and bravely say all the things she didn’t say so she can transform the wound of childhood into A.R.T. as Aching Raw Truth; of being all parts of who she really is. I vow to give her a second childhood of expression instead of repression. I’m here to support as many others as I can to move from what is holding them back to having their own back.