My interview with creative entrepreneur Teylor B Bonner
Teylor B Bonner is a photographer and filmmaker from Houston, Texas, who works across multiple creative mediums including clay sculpting, painting, writing, and jewellery making. Teylor’s approach to creativity is deeply connected to her human design as a manifesting generator – following bursts of energy and inspiration rather than forcing herself into rigid structures. While she wishes her process were more structured, she’s learned that following her energy and mood leads to better results. In filmmaking, she might start with storyboards and scripts but often abandons them mid-project, feeding lines to actors in the moment when it feels right, trusting her intuition over prescribed structures.
Her creative routine centres on mindfulness: starting mornings with meditation, stretching, water or tea, and trying to journal consistently. She creates specific playlists and ensures she has a good breakfast with hydrating foods because once she’s zoned in, she’ll work for hours without eating, sometimes looking up to find a whole other day has passed. This deep flow state requires the self-care foundation she builds each morning.
Teylor’s inspiration comes primarily from love-based connections – interactions with family, friends, and the warm feelings that come from connecting with people. Even negative interactions influence her work, but her core inspiration is rooted in love. She’s particularly inspired by artists focused on authenticity over following established rules. In the film world, she’s encountered people who insist documentaries must be lit a certain way or follow specific guidelines, but she questions why artists should keep following the same rules when art is meant to be freedom. Being around artists at the residency who create for themselves and do what they want has been deeply inspiring – it’s about taking off the limitations.
Her wisdom for beginning creatives acknowledges that art is a vulnerable process and can be scary, but she reminds herself that people will judge regardless, you can never make everybody happy, and not everyone will like your art. Because art is subjective, the most important thing is creating for yourself, for your purpose, and from your core – blocking out what people tell you art should be. Art is whatever you make it to be, a way to express yourself. Her final advice is to take a risk on yourself, believe in yourself because if you don’t believe in yourself no one else will, and give yourself the opportunity to shine and to be seen.
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Interview with Teylor B Bonner
Introduction
TB: My name is Teylor Bonner and I’m from Houston, Texas.
MD: Can you tell me a little bit about what your creative discipline is?
TB: So I am mostly a photographer and a filmmaker, but I also do things like dabble in like clay sculpting, but I’m not a sculptor, okay, but if I get an idea I’m like, I’m gonna go for it, I’m gonna try it. I like to paint, but like you know those follow along YouTube video situations, and then I enjoy writing. Writing is much more vulnerable for me, so I’m not really out there with it, but I’m working on that, and jewellery making. I gotta show you.
MD: I didn’t know that about you. That’s cool. You know I love earrings.
Creative Process
MD: Tell me, can you tell me a little bit about what your creative process is?
TB: My creative process has always kind of been, I would prefer to be more structured. It’s not as structured as I’d like it to be. I am much more like, if you ever heard of like a mood reader, I’m kind of the same with art, so my start off as one thing and then when I get that like jolt of inspiration, it can completely change for me and go a different direction.
So, a lot of times, especially like in filmmaking, we’ll have like our storyboards, you have your script and everything, but I’ve definitely done films where I’m feeding the lines to somebody and be like, we’re just gonna go like this because this feels right compared to us sitting there and like creating a structure sometimes. So, it’s really based on my energy and my mood, and if you have ever heard of human design, I’m a manifesting generator, which is literally about like when you get that burst of energy, you’re supposed to follow that flow and go with that, you end up with a better result versus trying to like force myself into a box or what I should do.
MD: Yep, I love that. And I’ll make sure I put some links to human design stuff in the notes.
Creative Routine
MD: Tell me, do you have a routine for your creativity?
TB: I try to stick to a routine for my creativity. That routine consists of a lot of mindfulness, so I try to start my mornings off being like meditative, just doing some stretching, and like water or like a specific tea or whatever I feel in that mood, and I’m trying to be more consistent with journaling, so I go through phases, but that’s kind of like what I stick with. Even specific playlists, too, like in the morning when I wake up, I would consider those to be my routine so that when I know I’m like, okay, I’m gonna work on a project today or whatever, the better my mood and a good breakfast, like fruits and something that’s hydrating, then I’m like, okay, this will help me, because I do, I am one of the people that like, once I’m zoned in, I will go for hours and I won’t eat, and I look outside, it’s a whole nother day, so yeah.
MD: I love that. You’re deep in the flow.
TB: I get, yeah, very locked in.
MD: Yeah, so that’s great that you, I actually talk with creatives a lot about self-care because that’s so important because we do get locked in. We do. And we forget to exercise, stretch, eat, drink, all those things.
Creative Inspiration
MD: Tell me, where, who, or what do you get your creative inspiration from, mostly?
TB: I get my creative inspiration from my interactions with different people, so I would say between my family, my friends, even if sometimes it’s not positive, a lot of times those things will influence, but a lot of my stuff is love-based, like whether that’s loving my family or loving my friends or coming into connection with people, you know, like you get that warm feeling, like I can say that to be like a love feeling.
Anytime I feel that, that’s something that really charges me up and gives me a lot of inspiration. I also get very inspired by artists that are more focused on authenticity, like being themselves versus sometimes, like in my experience being in the film world, there’s a lot of people that are kind of, I’m this kind of a filmmaker and I’ve done this and we’re gonna do things this way because history says if you’re gonna shoot a documentary, then the light has to be like this. I’m like, but we’re artists too, right?
So like, why do we have to keep following the same guidelines that someone told us that that’s what art is? Art to me is freedom, so when I get to be around other artists, like here at this residency, who are like, I’m creating for me, I’m doing what I want to do, like that inspires me a lot. Just taking off the limitations.
Creative Wisdom
MD: Tell me, if you were to meet someone just at the beginning of their kind of creative journey, what pearl or pearls of wisdom, what would you want to share with them?
TB: I would share that I feel that art is a very vulnerable process and as scary as it may seem, the one thing that I remind myself of is people are gonna judge you regardless and you can never make everybody happy and everyone isn’t gonna like your art. Art is subjective, so at the end of the day, make sure you’re always creating for yourself and for your purpose and from your core and try your best to block out like what people tell you art should be. Art’s whatever you make it and it’s what you want it to be, to express yourself.
MD: I love that so much. Thank you. Is there anything else that you would want to share with other creatives who might be watching this?
TB: Take a risk on yourself. Believe in yourself, because if you don’t believe in yourself, no one else is. And give yourself the opportunity to shine and to be seen.
Connect with Teylor B Bonner
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This interview was originally published on the Creative Momentum with Meg podcast. If you haven’t discovered the podcast, go have a listen for more interviews with creatives talking about their creative process, routine and inspiration.
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