SPSCC English Faculty Bring Joyful Practice to Olympia Arts Walk

When South Puget Sound Community College (SPSCC) English professors Jennifer Berney and Sarah Tavis talk about creative practice, they don’t frame it as productivity or mastery. Instead, they return again and again to play, curiosity, and gentler ways of making meaning. That shared perspective is at the heart of Joyful Practice, a collaborative project that brings together teaching, artmaking, and community connection.

Berney and Tavis are well known on campus for their work as professors, but their collaboration began outside their formal roles at SPSCC. At the end of 2024, both were feeling the strain of a difficult year and found themselves craving the kind of creative community they hadn’t been able to find elsewhere.

“We realized that the things that we were writing about, that folks were most interested in, really were around joyful practice and creative process,” Tavis said. “So we were like, if there are people craving this, and we’re craving it, let’s start trying to make community.”

They called the workshop series “Joyful Practice for Dark Times”. What began as an eight-week Zoom workshop quickly grew into something larger. As Berney and Tavis facilitated sessions, they began noticing recurring ideas emerge: the role of play, and the relief that comes when creativity is treated as exploration rather than performance.

Those ideas eventually became the foundation for The Joyful Practice Handbook: analog play for dark times, a handmade, illustrated guidebook designed to support ongoing creative practice. The book is intentionally unplugged—typed, drawn, and assembled by hand—and invites readers to step away from screens and return to tactile creative processes.

Rather than offering one-off prompts, the handbook introduces what Berney and Tavis call “Joyful Practices”, adaptable activities readers can return to over time. It also includes short essays on the creative process and a series of illustrated guiding principles that reflect the evolving philosophy behind the work. One of the book’s most playful elements is the inclusion of “Guardians,” archetypal figures ranging from mythological characters to contemporary artists, meant to spark imagination and invite new perspectives. The book is set to release in September 2026 and is printed by Gorham Printing, a longtime collaborator who previously printed editions of SPSCC’s literary and arts journal, the Percival Review (now known as South Sound Review).

While the concept of Joyful Practice has reached participants both locally and beyond Olympia, its roots are firmly grounded in the community where both writers have lived and worked for decades.

“I think there’s a funny combination of local interest and the fact that, when you lead a workshop on Zoom, truly anyone can come,” Berney laughed. “But we’ve mostly wound up hosting our broader Olympia community.”

Tavis agreed, noting that long-standing relationships made the project feel less intimidating to launch. “I’ve been in Olympia since ’97,” she said. “There’s a group of artists and writers we’re already connected with and building that community maybe felt more possible because of that.”

This spring, the Joyful Practice philosophy will take on a public, participatory form during Olympia Arts Walk on April 24 and 25. Berney and Tavis are organizing a Joyful Practice experience at Heart of the Deernicorn and Studio Golden in downtown Olympia. The experience will feature interactive creative play stations that invite visitors to engage directly with analog materials.

The experience was selected for an Arts Walk Innovation Award, something Tavis sees as part of a larger collaborative effort. “The award is a testament to what we’re doing at Heart of the Deernicorn and Studio Golden and what they’re doing as innovative businesses,” she said. “It’s not just us. It’s the whole package.”

For both Berney and Tavis, Joyful Practice is deeply connected to how they teach at SPSCC. Tavis sees clear parallels between the joyful practice principles and the way she structures her creative writing classes.

“So much of what I encourage students to do is not, ‘Let’s critique this in a punishing way,’” Tavis said. “It’s more like, what is your body’s response to this work? Listening to your body’s feedback, focusing on process rather than product…That’s joyful practice.”

Berney echoed that approach. “Nothing is ever finished, just released,” she said, naming one of the project’s core principles. “It feels intuitive to think that if you take away criticism, the work will get worse, but I think the opposite is true. The safer people feel, the more risks they take, and the more interesting the work becomes.”