We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stephanie Lee. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stephanie below.
Hi Stephanie, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
After 15 years of having a home-based studio and daydreaming about the possibility of a public studio away from home, a change in our living situation brought that possibility a lot closer. I have a lot of practice making a mountain out of a mole hill so when getting a studio away from home evolved from a daydream to a necessity, I tried to wiggle every which way to get out of it – to make it not make sense as a next step.
At the end of 2020, a big life and family shift culminated into my husband and me converting a space on our land into a 400 square foot studio apartment for us to live in and to rent out the main house to our daughter and her husband. At the time, my studio was a converted sunporch off the kitchen of the main house and whenever I went into the studio, my irresistible grandkids (aged 4 and 2 at the time) would barge through the door and want to make art with me. I loved it…and it was also not conducive to the productivity I needed to maintain to meet deadlines, film video courses, and host coaching calls. I wasn’t getting my work done efficiently and my daughter was struggling to keep her kids happy and quiet inside when they knew I was in the studio. It was a lot to ask of both of us.
It was time.
I live in a small town with plenty of vacant buildings but I wasn’t sure I would find a space that would check all the boxes – plenty of natural light, ground level access, affordable rent, and floors that could get trashed with paint. After dozens of phone calls and dead ends, I came across a place that was perfect. It fit all the criteria I needed with no downside.
That’s when my brain kicked into the doubt overdrive and I started making up reasons why it was just too risky to get the space. I’d make every little speed bump along the way mean something more than it really did: “Maybe that’s a sign I’m not supposed to rent the space.” I stewed on it for over a month, all the while building doubt in my mind that I would be able to sell enough art to cover the expenses. At one point I said to my husband, “I’m just worried that once the initial excitement wears off, I’ll just be stressed about the monthly expenses.”
He looked me and said something along the lines of, “The initial excitement always wears off of everything at which point you keep doing it because it just makes sense to. You do it because you’re building something or creating something or growing something and the commitment to what you are creating replaces the fleeting excitement. Plus, being stressed about the monthly expenses isn’t automatic. You can decide ahead of time how you want to feel about them.” He was using my own coaching to coach me and it was working.
I realized how much mental and emotional energy I was investing into all the ways it could be hard, not work, or turn out to be a bad idea instead of using that same energy to be excited about all the ways I could create solutions to those made up problems. (I can think of a hundred circumstances where I had the same limiting thinking and as a result, didn’t experience all that was possible in those opportunities. It’s a common human story.) My perspective shifted and it only made sense to get the space. The alternative felt small, restrictive, and diminishing of my creative expression. The space itself didn’t allow my creative expression to expand – I’ve made fully expressive art on my lap in the car on a road trip – but the decision to step into that space was where the expansion offered itself.
It felt like a risk to rent the studio space but it wasn’t the financial risk I feared it was. It was the perceived risk of losing my comfort zone but I want to be someone who questions the edges of that zone and who recognizes that the zone changes when I change my mind about what I want to create. I want to be someone who creates new possibilities for herself even when it’s easier not to. I took the risk, got the space, and have been experiencing my creativity show up just as much in the logistics as it does in my art making process. The real risk, as we all know, is in staying small and that will mean something different for everyone. For me, staying small in that moment meant doubting my ability to make a studio outside the home work. Deciding to believe, with certainty, that I could make the studio space work with ease and joy was the instant I burst out of the small thinking and into new possibilities.
Stephanie, 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 have been making mixed media art for over 15 years with a focus primarily in plaster and encaustic medium. I’ve been devoted to understanding the nuance of those mediums so that I could transform otherwise unassuming materials into luminous and textural works of art. After years of teaching other creatives (mostly women) process and technique through unperson and online art retreats, I became deeply tuned into the unconscious ways creative people limit their access to their creative expression.
Self-doubt, what-if’s, comparison, just to name the obvious ones. I became as committed to encouraging artist to question the unhelpful thoughts they have while creating as much as I was committed to teaching them technique and process. I added creative mentoring and coaching to my offerings not knowing if people would want it.
Wow, did they ever! The artists I was working with were ready to shift their mindset. They were tired of the looping cycle of the same ol’ surface level advice for how to be confident as an artist and they wanted something deeper, more sure and solid.
To walk your singular path of creative expression confidently isn’t about getting good at all the things other say you need to be good at doing. It’s about cultivating an unshakable confidence rooted in your ability to receive personal inspiration to the messages that are woven just for YOU from all the possibilities that exist.
As a mentor, I love working with people who value their own creativity and growth enough to be willing to ask the questions they haven’t known the answers to. I love working with people who are willing to believe they are worth the effort of unraveling limiting beliefs that keep them from thriving creatively. Imagine how it would feel to unravel limiting beliefs that keep you from thriving creatively with confidence, gentleness, and joy.
I want creatives to know that purpose, peace, and confidence aren’t things you’ll find “when…” They are conditions you can create even as your certainty of your path is unfolding. They are in you, around you, and through you. The best way I offer this truth is through personal, one on one creative mentoring and through my program, “The Unstuck Artist”.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
This is such a rich topic to explore and you’ll find as many opinions on what the best path way is as there are social media coaches out there! I could talk all day about all the pros and cons of algorithms and content scheduling but nothing matters more to me for social media growth and relationships than having fun.
Seriously. If it doesn’t sound fun, I don’t do it. Sometimes that means I post once a week and resist buying into the idea that I “HAVE” to post every day to be successful. Sometimes that means I make a game of posting every day for a while to see what results that creates. I absolutely know that constant posting and learning all the tricks to please the algorithm work well for a lot of things but my soul’s algorithm is driven by joy.
The rule is that in order to grow your audience, you have to give value and I’d agree. But I see a lot of artists twisting themselves up into all sorts of knots to offer what they think others will consider to be of value all the while believing that value is a thing you make up and prove to people. The reality is that the real value is the way your mind works and the way you see things. Period. Extremely useful value exists in sharing that by way of a simple, un-staged, real-life Instagram live or Facebook post.
When I share in this way, I am much more edified and connected to my audience in a way that feels more soulful, human, and honest than when I try to guess what they want to hear and paste together some faux-profound thoughts to meet that made up idea. For me, a thriving social media audience is one of humanness, connection, and encouragement.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
Life coaching. For real.
In all honesty, I used to think life coaches were for people who didn’t know what job they wanted to do or who didn’t know how to think for themselves. Decades later I’m all in with life coaching. Of course, every life coach is different and finding one that feels like a good energetic match for who you are is essential. Having coaches has been the single most potent tool I’ve used to cultivate creative confidence and to build a thriving creative practice in a world that still has a lot of belief tied into stories of struggle and lack for creatives.
Learning how to question my thoughts, rewrite the ones that aren’t useful, and create ones that support my creative expansion is the best resource I’ve ever had.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.stephanieleeart.com
- Instagram: @stephanielynnlee
- Facebook: Stephanie Lee Art
Image Credits
Stephanie Lee