"Soul tending comes through my art, through the questioning, intuitive inquiry, and exploration of my visual journaling. Art is healing. This source of the creative spark, the soul’s creative process, feels like a gift from the dark and the light."
~Stephanee Howell
Welcome to Illuminated, a feature that I am excited to be offering as a source of inspiration for all of us following the call to live authentic, creative lives. This month I shine the spotlight on a beloved friend, fellow yogini, photographer and mixed media artist Stephanee Howell. I met Stephanee in graduate school and had the privilege of witnessing her soul-work emerge and evolve during our two year program. I credit her with inspiring and supporting my own interest in mixed media art making which has developed into a full-on passion! Stephanee is one of the most genuine, quietly present and deeply soulful people I have ever met. Her daily blog, Make Believe Boutique, offers a unique blend of beauty, wisdom, wildness, encouragement and rest. I return to it each morning as a way of filling my own well and nurturing my spirit. Stephanee is devoted to the on-going art of becoming true to her gifts and sharing them generously with everyone in her life. I am truly honored and grateful to know and be known by this luminous woman.
Meet Stephanee:
How do you define and describe your art?
I see myself living a creative life, bringing creativity to the everyday. For me, it is about the process, rather than the outcome. There is a concept called “duende,” that speaks to me deeply. This Spanish word, meaning inspiration or passion, is at the core of my artistic process. Creativity, the creative process, making art, finding my voice~ all of it is about living authentically and with a sweetness and curiosity toward living fully.
Making art has evolved into a contemplative, spiritual practice for me. I primarily love visual journaling and making altered books. Photography is integral to all of my art and my everyday explorations. I also love assemblage~ making boxes and shrines. Sketching, painting, and collage all have a place in my studio. Poetry is the thread that weaves through all of my work, words that are the truest and most sustaining power of life’s creative energy.
Have you always been creative or is it something you have grown into?
I have been creating and living in imaginary worlds forever. It is my truest home. Deep imagination and play are sacred tools of seeing and perceiving, inviting in an essence of moving through time in a non-linear way. As a child, I spent many hours creating imaginary playmates, reading, playing in fairy-lands in the woods, and daydreaming. To live in this essence is simple really. But over a lifetime, it is easy to censor and become discouraged with expectations and doubt. My gift has been to nurture wonderment and a sacred trust in the land of make-believe.
Do you have any daily practices or self care rituals that you rely on to support your craft?
Absolutely. I need prayer. Gratitude practices. Mindfulness practices. Grace. I study and practice yoga as a living art. Being in nature regularly and intentionally. Meditation practice morning and night. Visual journaling became a spiritual discipline during my graduate work at Sofia University, studying the creative process through a transpersonal lens. This practice forever integrated the mundane and the sacred in my life. Nothing may be as healing and as grounding as a pause in the day with my old cat. My old fur friend holds all questions and unfinished expression.
How, if at all, has your art making cultivated the conditions for healing in your life? Can you give an example?
There are so many~ The most recent centers around the death of my mom. I light a candle for her everyday. Soul tending comes through my art, through the questioning, intuitive inquiry, and exploration of my visual journaling. Art is healing. This source of the creative spark, the soul’s creative process, feels like a gift from the dark and the light. I intuitively respond to this paradoxical mix of creation and destruction. Awareness and inner knowing are like a descending spiral, resisting definition at every turn, and can only be accessed through metaphor and poetic reflection.
What effect do you most want your art to have on your audience?
Art and service and yoga all interweave and offer a way of self-reflection that is compassionate and full of the integral beauty of our lives. How can we access that?
Who or what currently inspires you?
Contemplative art as a spiritual practice, living and breathing and being fed through service to “something greater” is at the core of my work. I teach yoga to cancer patients, survivors and caregivers. I offer yoga/art workshops. I am studying yoga therapy. I am a Hospice volunteer and a Lay Pastoral Care Counselor through the Unitarian Church. All of this work feeds the art. The art as a spiritual practice feeds the work.
And oh, I find inspiration in everything! I am intrigued by iphonography and am diving into it, blending it in my mixed media work. This medium integrates all that is happening, without words, into a fine triptych of life (past, present, future). I am fascinated by the many creative souls connecting through social media, giving workshops and rediscovering soul work~ skeptical about how I could offer my work, but interested.
What questions are alive for you now? Toward what experience or idea do you feel called to explore next in your creative journey?
I am deeply inquiring into the blend of yoga and art, offering workshops that integrate these practices into daily processes and practicalities. As a facilitator, I create space for a resurrection and rekindling of life as the ultimate creative act. I ask questions. What does it really mean to be true to oneself? What does the inner heart have to say to you? I seek to honor the ordinary awakening in each moment, step by step with amazement and deep attention. I encourage playfulness with the miraculous and wildly rich inner life that emerges within the day-to-day routine. This soul matrix is about being fit and fearless as a soul warrior with an unsung originality and fierce expressive expansion.
Finally, what wisdom or particular suggestion would you offer to someone who is seeking to be more creative in their own lives?
Follow those little impulses to “create as you go~” those moments in your day when you need a certain color, a store window calls to you, a soft shawl speaks to you. These are little secrets from your soul, whispering. Don’t worry so much about sitting down at a blank white page, thinking that you need to learn how to paint. It’s much more. Lean into living a bit more fully and richly. Be in the moments of your life, especially the muck and the messiness. It’s beautiful there.
Thank you Stephanee!
and check out her professional profile:
