We recently connected with Leslie Bowers and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Leslie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

My job is not, technically, just to be creative. I began at the church as a children’s minister. I was always able to use my creativity and artistic endeavors in that ministry – the kids and I spent two whole years making a different group art piece every other Wednesday night while learning scripture, among other things. During the COVID shut-down, I was asked to shift to this new, relatively undefined role. It was a good bit planning worship services, finding and/or writing liturgy for those, finding people to participate, and creating visual elements in our worship spaces. It grew and morphed over time to include congregation-wide art projects, creating banners (through painting and sewing) for our worship spaces and leading prayer exercises and thought-provoking lessons using art as part of the process. I had always been a crafty person, but never considered anything I did more than just a hobby and fun. During this time, we decided to start our Modern worship service back up and the room where it would be held needed an extreme makeover. It needed a visual piece for the back of the “stage” area and I had seen a video of someone using some sort of tactile medium to make a very 3D, tactile art and something in my brain just knew I could figure it out to make some sort of water element art to be our backdrop. I figured out the technique on the fly, mixed my colors to get gradients as I went, and went back to the store a million times because the project took way more time and product than I imagined when I started it. The project didn’t even end up looking the way I hoped when I started, BUT when I finished it and hung it in our worship space, people were taken with it. Artists (like actual, “made a living at it” artists) in our congregation asked me questions and told people to go see the piece. I’ve made pieces I’ve been proud of through a million different “crafts” during my life (amazing scrapbooks, beautiful ways of displaying pictures, and group projects that hung around the church, but this was the first time it felt like I had created real art, not just crafted in the way I always had. It just gave me a new perspective on how to view the things I create.

Leslie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I would say, as “creatives” go, I’m not typical because I don’t have a business or brand of my creations. I don’t create just one thing. I write creatively, do paper crafts, paint, help other people create pieces and put those together as art – it’s an ever shifting thing for me. They are skills I have honed from being a crafter and learned to use at my job (through creating visual elements for worship and helping people connect to God, themselves, and those around them with art), at my kids’ schools (decorations for fundraisers, taking on hallway bulletin boards, decorations for banquets, crafts with kids in classes), and even in my own personal life (creating something is my go-to centering activity when life feels out of control or too stressful). I am someone who loves to TRY something new – a new skill, a new medium, a new subject. It doesn’t always work the way I plan and I call myself the queen of plan F because I’m always adjusting and trying again. The thing I’ve learned is that that sort of IS art. I’ve sold things I’ve made before, but mostly I just create day in and day out to make life manageable and beautiful and deeper and more enjoyable. I do have an Etsy shop (PeachyKeenbyLeslie) that sometimes has my creations in it, but mainly you can find things I’ve created in the halls of Northbrook United Methodist Church and my children’s schools.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Honestly, I never create anything (videos for work, written devotions, bulletin boards, art for school or church hallways, gifts for friends/family, or group art projects for my congregation) that my goal isn’t to spark joy, depth, connection, healing, centering, or peace. I love a finished project that I can look at day after day, but mostly it’s because the finished project will always remind me of the thing it helped me heal from or work through. It will always remind me of the joy I saw on someone else’s face when they realized they, too, could make something beautiful. It will always remind me of the way I connected to God, a congregant, a friend, a child, or even some part of myself while doing the art. My goal, mission, and impetus in all of my creativity is to try and make the world better – sometimes my own little inner world, sometimes the world of someone I know and love, sometimes the world at large. I decorate the schools BIG for events because of all the joy it adds to the lives of the kids and staff. (The squeals and giggles I hear when we go big for an event are worth every second of work.) I write what I hope are meaningful reflections on life to remind those who read that they are not alone, that there is hope and joy and light to be found, that the negative story their mind sometimes wants to believe isn’t the only story out there. Even the artwork of just living my life is always aimed at trying to make the world feel brighter and kinder as I pass through it.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me, creating is healing. I have been on a hard mental health journey since 2020 when I was diagnosed with CPTSD and on even the hardest days when I questioned who I was, what my life was, what about life was safe and good and important, pausing to paint, write, craft, edit a video, or create a graphic always brought peace and healing. The craziest thing though, is not only does the act of creating bring peace and healing, but then every time I see the thing I created (or helped create), I immediately feel that same peace and healing return. It is mildly Pavlovian the way my body instantly returns to the calm created while creating. So the healing and peace and calm and joy is exponential. Recognizing this fact as I have learned to name my anxieties and the things that help heal has also helped me realize that I have created my entire life to find calm and peace and healing – long before I knew what I was doing consciously.