Creative Performer exists to nurture the humanity in creativity.
We believe that practicing creativity adds irreplaceable value to our collective human potential, and we envision a future in which humans continue to play a key role in expression and decision making. Additionally, we advocate for the integrity of peer to peer connection and communication within creative domains. Our strategy is to apply scientifically supported theories and practices from other high stress environments (such as professional athletics and emergency medicine) to help manage the pressures that so often accompany any kind of creative practice. We aim to enhance resilience, improve satisfaction, and optimize performance amongst creative practitioners. As an enthusiastic and interdisciplinary duo, we accomplish this through providing education, resources, and training focusing on the development of mental skills and mindfulness and their direct integration into creative practice. Join us each month here as we release a new monthly discovery, where we playfully explore human potential in creative domains. If you have questions or requests for one on one or team sessions, please feel free to contact us directly!
Get to know us a bit more 🙂
Amanda Alexander | Ph.D.
While her overarching approach is humanistic and performance psychology-based, she integrates a number of systems and methods into her practice with clients. She am largely influenced by mindfulness-based practices, relational-cultural theory, feminist/multicultural theories, experiential/Gestalt theories, and DBT-based theories. Advocacy is also an important part of her professional and personal worldview, and she strives to provide services that are non-discriminatory and nurturing of all aspects of diversity. Amanda values her own mental health and self-care, so that she can live fully and be present and effective in her work with clients. She enjoys soaking up nature and sunshine, reading, spending time with friends and family, picking around on the guitar, and keeping a regular yoga+meditation practice. Amanda also stay active through running, swimming, paddleboarding, biking, and traveling as much as humanly possible.
Amanda earned her doctorate in Counseling Psychology from the University of Tennessee and am a Certified Mental Performance Consultant for the Association for Applied Sport Psychology. She is Licensed as a Psychologist in both Florida (PY10052) and Texas (#37228). As a previous Division I athlete, she values having a team-based approach to solving problems and navigating through life’s challenges. Ultimately, she believes we can all get more out of our potential and Stretch ourselves to new possibilities when we are supported effectively. While Amanda is trained as a generalist, capable of working with individuals and couples who have a variety of concerns, her primary areas of expertise and interest are peak performance, stress management/reduction & burnout, multiculturalism and diversity, relationship health, self-esteem and identity, trauma resolution, and life transitions. She’s also collaborating on a new project for creative practitioners that is very exciting; learn more about it through the Monthly Discovery!
Jarred Elrod | MFA
Jarred Elrod is a proud citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and native West Texan who is currently struggling to learn Italian. A graphic designer + educator by trade, he’s faculty alum at Texas Tech University and the University of Florida, where he taught Graphic Design full time from 2015-2022. Jarred is currently an online instructor of Graphic Design at his alma-mater, West Texas A&M University. As a practitioner, Jarred specializes in illustration, branding, and photography. He graduated with his B.F.A. in Graphic Design from the aforementioned West Texas A&M University and his M.F.A. in Graphic Design from the University of Tennessee—good ol’ Rocky Top. When he’s not working on self-initiated or client-based creative projects, his primary area of research interest is developing cross-discipline methodologies to enhance creative potential and mental resiliency for makers in a multitude of creative domains with his spouse Amanda, who is a Performance Psychologist—together they are Creative Performer.
Jarred loves teaching and has lectured as a Visiting Professor of Graphic Design and Illustration at Gaungxi Arts Institute in Nanning, China and has developed programs to teach in Berlin, Germany through the University of Florida International Center (UFIC). His work has been featured in HOW Magazine, the Texas Biennial, and the Bolivia and Uruguay International Poster Biennials. In addition, he’s lectured and/or run solo and collaborative workshops in conjunction with AIGA, UCDA, NSSC, CAA SECAC, and the Institute of European Design (IED) Milano. When he’s not teaching or making things, he can be found on ambitious euro-van trips, sipping coffee, or riding wheelies on his mountain bike or vintage enduro motorcycle. Keep up with him here in his online journal!