Happiness is a renewable resource. So is courage.
Creativity is how we get there. And we get there together.
— Judith-Kate Friedman
Welcome to Aliveness Through Arts.
In times like ours, making art of all kinds is more crucial than ever. Summer harvest brings fruits (and veggies) of resilience, reminding us of life’s cycles. Sprouts pushed through with insistent beauty from the earth even as snowflakes fell. And now, as sun bathes and bakes us, ripening in our inner and outer gardens we prepare to honor abundance and share our collective bounty.
What helps us sustain our strength and use our passions for good amidst heat and change?
How can we welcome yet temper any furies within and without, and come to live more readily and steadily with paradox—within ourselves and in community?
My work as a singer, songwriter, facilitator, and designer of programs and group processes is about supporting people of all cultures and generations to find and use our voices, with courage upwelling from love and justice.
What calls you forth as a creative person? As one who dreams of being more freely creative?
What brings you to this page?
What stirs your creative voice? (And what interrupts it?)
If you can use a hand in strengthening your own artistry and resilience—and turning whatever struggles and challenges you’re experiencing into the rich, generative soil of creative possibility—Let’s talk. Schedule a free 20-minute conversation via my calendar here — Together we can explore whether private coaching sessions or the group cohorts I offer can support your soul-satisfaction and success, however you define these.
My late summer into fall 2026 offerings will be posted this week (by August 10) with early bird rates in effect til Aug 15th. Browse past coaching offerings here and here.
My next concert and reading is happening on Saturday Aug 22nd at noon online (zoom).
I’ll be bringing new and favorite original songs, poetry, and work-in-progress excerpts from the creative non-fiction book I’m working on. Reservation link coming soon. We’re also hoping to have an in-person concert that evening at 5:30pm in Port Townsend and the following week in Sequim. Stay tuned to this page or my facebook.
Follow the links here to sample my music,poetry, social practice projects or stroll/scroll through the virtual gallery: Portals to Myth: Mandorla Rising.
Some additional links to explore:
I offer song and poetry commissions, composed for or with you or a loved one.
Multi-modal explorations in kinship with the Living World
Learn more about the work of two charitable organizations I founded and steward:
Songwritingworks.org - catalyzing joy, hope, and vitality, in community through story and song
Mythsingerlegacy.org - restoring the wisdom of myth to culture and community
Whatever speaks to you here, I look forward to hearing from you.
And hope to speak with you soon!
With love, gratitude, story, and song,
Judith-Kate Friedman
Recent Anthologies! » I’m honored to be included in BOTH the 2025-26 and the 2024-25 volumes of the Stafford Challenge anthology.
A Celtic tale:
The God Lugh sought to enter into Tara, dwelling place of the Gods.
At the gates into the Other World, Tara’s denizens would say yes only to those whose talents they truly needed.
Lugh approached and beseeched, naming one of his many skills:
Smith, harper, poet, magician, metal-worker, historian, physician….
Each time, he was told “We already have one. We don’t need anymore.”
Yet, Lugh was unstoppable.
Again, and again he offered a different aspect of himself with no luck.
Then one day, exasperated, he proclaimed his true fullness:
“I am all this!”
Swiftly the Gates opened granting Lugh access to longed-for, long-guarded, unforeseen realms.
And so it is with us, too.
Creativity opens our hearts and opens the hearts of others.
Claiming all of who we are restores us to wholeness
and we become our true selves: wondrous and unstoppable.
It’s when we claim our unique combination of skills, talents, gifts, and imperfections—when we acknowledge that indeed, there is no one else on earth quite like us—that doors open.
Let’s move through the gates of what once seemed impossible–together.
I look forward to hearing from you and to supporting your thriving.
—Judith-Kate
Tale adapted from the telling and teaching of Daniel ‘3D’ Deardorff from his book, The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture, and Psyche (Inner Traditions, 2022).
Judith-Kate Friedman is an award-winning composer, producer, and multi-modal artist and author.
Tapestry, Deer Park, Olympic Mountains, WA —Judith-Kate Friedman