We were lucky to catch up with Lee Ann Lander recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lee Ann , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had started sooner?

Yes. I wish I would have had the courage to follow my creative path right out of high school. I wonder how much I could have already accomplished. But I doubted myself. Wrote off my callings as irresponsible pipe dreams. I know now that I am absolutely wired for creativity and always have been. On the other hand, I am pretty certain I would not have had the emotional intelligence to handle the critiquing OR the success and would have probably wound up addicted or even dead. So it’s an interesting thing to think about.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a mixed media visual artist, a children’s author, and a songwriter. Up until recently, I have handled these buckets separately. But lately I find myself mixing all these creative processes together. For instance, I am writing a new song to accompany my children’s book. At my latest solo art exhibit, I also had my music playing in the background as part of the experience and also had a concert night at the gallery. So, I am a mixed media artist mixing together several art forms.

Proud is not quite the right word, but I am most thankful for my sense of curiosity and my willingness to experiment, try new mediums, and quest for learning. This combination keeps my work fresh, innovative, and ever evolving.

Today my artwork can be seen in various exhibits, galleries, and has been sold nationwide. I do regular author visits at schools for the children’s book. And I have a great group of people around me helping make these happen. While it may seem like a solo gig…to get to certain places, there is always a team at work. Lean into and acknowledge the team players around you.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I teach art and have also done some executive coaching using art as an entry point. I love when people tell me, “I’m just not creative. I’m no artist”. These are my favorite clients because they just told me basically – they forgot who they are and are just waiting to be reminded. These are the same people that by the end of the sessions, are the most excited and become my biggest marketers by word of mouth just because they had such a dramatic awakening.

There is no such thing as a non-creative btw. Creativity is something we are all born with. Like muscles and brain cells. And just like muscles and brain cells, we can either do things to increase our capacity of creativity, or we can just sleepwalk through life.

And art is one tiny sliver of what creativity really is. Creativity is how people have survived, it’s how cures are found, it’s how technology advances, it’s how brands are re-invented, just to name a few. If you are an executive in a company of any kind – you better believe you are one creative powerhouse. And the best thing to do is to surround yourself with people who are even more creative than you if you want the company to succeed through the years.

So – lean into your own creativity. It’s already there. If you are human, and you’re breathing…you are creative and have the potential to increase it if you choose.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I have not had an easy road in life. My mom had Schizophrenia and it created a lot of chaos and confusion in my childhood and early adulthood. When I started facing some of my own mental health challenges in the form of depression, I had hit a crossroad where I knew I needed to make some intentional changes.

I was kind of salty about the fact that I felt stuck in Ohio at the time. So I challenged myself to find beauty right where I was. Literally…in my own backyard or right in my own kitchen. I didn’t think I would find it, but I did. It showed up in a big way – right in front of me. Things I had been looking at my whole life, but never took the time to really see. Dew drops on grass or clover leaves…broccoli or cabbage if I was stuck inside. In the winter, I saw individual, perfectly formed snowflakes and frost plates of various forms. I was quite literally overwhelmed with the amount of the beauty that I was finding – so much so, that I started sharing it on social media and what I found is that other people were just as amazed as I was. Here, we had all been walking around with our eyes closed!

So out of a depression and a need to find beauty right where I was, I found not only beauty, but a whole new way to look at the world. That change in perspective helped put me on a different and healthier path and share that with others. To this day the best compliment I can get is that I helped someone see the world in a different way.

Contact Info:

• Website: leeannlander.net
• Instagram: leeannlander.art and Sunny_the_firefly
• Facebook: Lee Ann Lander Art and Photography
• Linkedin: Lee Ann Lander

Image Credits
All photos were taken by me