“It’s important to start with as much freedom as you can give yourself… Just see what you’re working with.” – Catherine Svehla

“You can open a box before you start writing… that’s where that part of the story is. And when you close the box, then you can walk away from it.” – Catherine Svehla

“Mojo is a symbolic magic… it encapsulated… the energy that makes something creative and surprising and energizing.” – Catherine Svehla

“The satisfaction of knowing that I have been true to what I really wanted for myself… can’t be taken away from me. And it sustains me through the times that have been hard.” – Catherine Svehla

“Do we really want to talk about archetypes or… the archetypal?… Things that catch our attention… are archetypal. They’re potent for us.” – Catherine Svehla

“The part of you that doesn’t believe this project’s worth doing—let’s talk about that… You have to be able to manage the conversation.” – Catherine Svehla

“Once you sit down, you have to actually put it into words… you just have to sit there long enough that something kind of bubbles up and you’re like, okay, that’s where I’m gonna start and then it starts flowing.” – Josh Mortensen

“I will write things… and it’ll surprise me sometimes the things that come out… A week, two weeks, maybe six months [later], I’m reading a book about… the symbology of a very specific thing, and I think, geez, I wrote that.” – Josh Mortensen

“Let whatever’s inside of you come out without trying to control it, but then take the time afterwards to connect the dots.” – Josh Mortensen

“What you’re actually doing is creating… some wholeness inside of yourself as you let these symbols come up… you sit with them, you experience them.” – Josh Mortensen

“An artist who’s afraid to go there is only going to ever scratch the surface of their own kind of potential as a creator.” – Josh Mortensen

“The very fact that they’re symbols… gives you this distance to actually work with the thing in a way where you can feel the emotion, but… it’s contained in something that is not just overwhelming you.” – Josh Mortensen

“We’re in a place where a lot of people are going to need to create their own kind of symbolic world for themselves going forward… everybody is going to need this mojo, this creative spark for themselves.” – Josh Mortensen

“You can’t get [wholeness] by going down well-paved paths or well-trod trails. You have to get off and go kind of find your own.” – Josh Mortensen

“That same critic… could try to take control of the actual creative process… If you sit down trying to be so controlling… you’re not going to surprise yourself… that part of you almost needs to step out of the way.” – Josh Mortensen