We began where we always do: by asking questions.

In 2016, we—Heidi and Kelly—set out to explore and understand the magic of collaboration by conducting interviews with creative pairs. We talked to creative people about collaboration and partnership, because we were curious about how relationships fuel, inspire, and support what we dream, make, and do. We learned so much! Check out the interviews. At the end, we gathered creators' wisdom in our Collaborator's Guide, which you can download for free.

In early 2018, we continued to explore the idea that collaboration is what helps us to keep going. We designed a workshop about how to cultivate an everyday sense of fulfillment by creating, practicing, and sticking to rituals. We called it How to Keep Going and offered it in Maine, Vermont, and New York. Each time, we were overwhelmed by the amazing power of community participants generated together. We made a booklet to serve as a self-guided version of our workshop and printed a limited number to share with you. They’re even hand-stitched!

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Why collaboration?

Creativity doesn't happen in a vacuum. As artists and makers, we draw inspiration from others.

We started Two Create because we’ve found our own creative partnership to be so valuable to our work.

Like many elements of the creative process, the relationships that support our work can be invisible to the outside world. As we talked about our own partnership, we started to wonder what this relationship looked like for other creative people.

Collaborators taught us that the motivation, inspiration, and community they get from working with together is how they keep going—even when things get hard. Our hope is to continue to build community with each other and create a sense of connection between creative people.

Who we are

We are Kelly Shetron, of Brooklyn, New York and Heidi Sistare, of Portland, Maine. We met at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in 2012, where we both studied nonfiction writing and multimedia storytelling.

Ever since then, our friendship has been grounded in a shared passion for creativity, storytelling, and wondering about the connections between everything. We believe creative practices can be tools for personal and social change.

Today, Heidi is a social worker and community organizer, and Kelly is a freelance writer. Our day-to-day work and projects are pretty different, but we always come back together to talk about the values behind our work, the creative process, and what we are learning and working toward. And we motivate one another to write!