Devin Walker

Devin Walker

Poet, Passionate learner, Creator

We sat down to ask one of our favorite artists a few questions.

Check out her quick interview below!

THE QUICK INTERVIEW:

Conscious Creatives: If you were a recipe what would be your ingredients?

Devin: If I were a recipe, I’d be very contradicting. Like a sweet and salty donut, both elements are good and very different but somehow it all works together. A lot of the time I would say I am made of shame, guilt, grief, anxiety, and depression. But in order to work with these parts of myself in a healthy way, I’ve needed to be resilient, determined, assertive, kind, and patient. Now I’m in a fermenting stage, where I’m trying to figure out how to break down these parts of myself that are hard to deal with and really figure out how to be the best version of me. I know there’s no way to make my mental illness go away entirely, but I’m hoping if I add more of my “sweet” qualities to myself the “salty” won’t ruin the meal, but rather have just enough to enhance the flavor and give my life a deeper meaning.

Conscious Creatives: Write a quick poem about your favorite scent

Devin: Passion smells like sweat, and sweat can’t lie. I can smell self-love after a workout. I can smell determination during a final exam and my hand clenched tight around a pencil and anxiety racing. Passion smells like sweat. Dirty sheets drenched with our desire to please. Sweat smells like love, sweat smells like hope. Sweat might not smell the best, but has passion ever measured up to our romantic expectations?

Conscious Creatives: How have you changed since this time last year?

Devin: This time last year I was running on fumes. I was taking high school classes, multiple college classes, participated in theatre, and was the youth intern for a poetry organization in Colorado Springs called Hear, Here! I would say “yes” to all favors that were asked of me, I went to school full time, put on events, did theatre, and performed throughout the year. All of that led to being overworked and I was unable to take care of myself physically, emotionally, or spiritually and I ended up having to break off some commitments I had made to extra curricular activities because I couldn’t handle it; which I didn’t want to do, but had to. This year I’ve been focusing on taking care of myself while also trying to balance my responsibilities and passions, which is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I’ve been going at a much slower pace lately, primarily focusing on school, my mental health, and writing my book. This has been really difficult because I feel like I should be more productive and that since I’ve slowed down I’m failing in a way. These feelings aren’t matching up with my logic (which they rarely do) because I know this is how it must be to start getting a handle on proper self care, but my mental illness makes it feel like I’m defective. I’m hoping by this time next year, I will have improved this thinking and start meeting myself where I’m at and be okay with that. Right now I’ve met myself where I am able to function, but I’m working on being okay with it.

Conscious Creatives: What's one thing you'd like to accomplish this year?

Devin: This year I will finish my book, which explores faith, mental illness, and trauma. I recently had the book almost finished, but then I scrapped over half of it because it just didn’t feel honest to my emotions anymore. I kept sitting down to write poems that matched my outline and I was unable to. So, I decided that even though I invested a lot of time already into my first version of the book, I would never finish it if I wasn’t being true to my current self, and cut a lot out.

Conscious Creatives: What's your favorite song?

Devin: If I had to pick just one, I would have to go with “From Here ‘Til Utopia (Song For The Desperate)” by Ramshackle Glory. It reminds me to stay honest with myself, and try to work towards building the life I want, even if it’s hard to care. The lines “I want something more than an apology to say when I look the world in the eye” really speak to me.

Conscious Creatives: What's a place you really want to travel to and why?

Devin: I can’t really pick one place, honestly. I want to go to as many different countries as I possibly can, and learn about as many different cultures as I can. There are a lot of things in the world I am very ignorant to as a white American woman, and I’m eager to listen and learn from the world. I wouldn’t want to just go on a traditional tourist vacation, but go specifically to speak with people and hear their stories if they’d be comfortable sharing with me. I think listening to other people’s stories is the most important thing anyone can do to start understanding the beauty in every culture.

Conscious Creatives: What's another art form or skill you'd like to learn?

Devin: I want to learn how to build a house or remodel a vehicle to live in. I would love to create an independent space and create the world I want to live in with my own hands. I think there’s something powerful in being able to build your own space and own it fully.