Valuing the Artist
External Validation, Self-Worth, and Creative Practice
Friday, August 28 7:30 PM
Shadowcliff Mountain Lodge & Retreat Center, 105 Co Rd 663, Grand Lake, CO 80447
Join artist and creative consultant Nick Leavens for a conversation about one of the most persistent questions in any creative life: how do we decide what creative work is worth?
Drawing from his own path across theater, stone sculpture, and filmmaking, Leavens will explore how artists experience and internalize the value assigned to their work throughout their careers, examining the relationship between external validation, self-worth, and creative practice. How does external recognition shape what we make? What happens to the creative self when the world's valuation and our own sense of worth fall out of alignment?
These questions reach beyond the professional artist. Anyone who has made something, or cares about someone who does, will find a place for themselves in this conversation.
This conversation is part of Shadowcliff's 2026 Still Point Sessions residencies, bringing artists to the mountains for a week of creative work in Grand Lake.

About Nick
Nick Leavens is an artist, creative consultant, and business owner. He works in the mediums of stone sculpture and filmmaking with a background in theatre, where he specialized in new play development at the heart of NYC’s downtown theatre scene. Nick's carving practice moves between the intimate and the material, exploring physicality, time, and his ongoing conversation with the stone. He works across three areas: small, blessed wearable objects that bring stone sculpture into a delicate and deeply personal scale; functional vessels and tableware that elevate everyday objects into one-of-a-kind, heightened experiences; and abstract work that follows the character of each individual stone, letting the material reshape his intention as he carves. As an artist and consultant, Nick has worked throughout the United States and internationally. He was a recipient of Australia's prestigious Endeavour Fellowship and has worked on projects with the Albanian government, in the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, and Brazil. Currently Nick serves as advisor to Green Alpha Investments, a $300 million impact investing fund, and Kineastja, a women-led film production company in Albania. He sits on the advisory boards of Black Public Media and The Creativity Conference.