We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Suzanne L. Vinson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Suzanne l., appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Over the last twenty years, I’ve become very good at curating meaningful experiences through retreats, gatherings, and support groups. I love leading these experiences using mindfulness, journaling practices, deep breathing, guided meditation, and mark making and creative practices. In addition to those experiences, I have found creating curated boxes filled with creative, self care oriented tools to be immensely meaningful. The depth comes in when writing little booklets on how to use the items mindfully. The meaning infused within each box comes back tenfold as bereaved parents, fatigued ministers, folks undergoing treatment, or others receive the boxes and feel the love and care placed within them.

Creating these boxes, especially for those who are grieving, has been such a gift. All of my gifts are held in each box – my work as an artist, minister, and chaplain is in use in the development and curation of mindful practices I write and the themes I base creative projects around. Folks are encouraged to be in the season of life as they are and to find healing through participating in the rituals and rhythms created from using the materials in each box. I make them visually stimulating and multi-sensory, trusting the recipient will receive exactly what they need in this moment.

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 have developed my brand over many years around listening to and sharing my intuition and wisdom through art, gatherings, rituals, and ceremonies. I create soulful, sacred experiences through each gathering, retreat, bereavement group, cohort, and group I facilitate. I am a weaver of stories, a gatherer of poetry and color and wisdom. I practice my own inner work and gently guide others into theirs. I’ve been a gatherer of people and stories and have used my hands to create from an early age. What that looks like has changed shape and been honed into the skills I use today. All of my personal and professional study comes into these ways in which I live my call. Like many of you, I’ve learned the hard way as often as I do what comes naturally.

My own practices and pursuits as an ordained minister helps me to be a creative chaplain for the soul. To help create experiences that focus on love, loving kindness, healing, and wholeness – especially amidst what is truly hard and filled with grief. It’s been a lifetime of hard-won skills and inner work. I love sharing what season(s) I am in life and what my capacity is in a given season. I call in my friends, energy healers, and guides as a way to continually learn and grow. I am most proud of how we all have the capacity to grow in courage, strength, and resilience.

Sharing my personal art listening to and sharing wisdom as a daily art project back in 2012, folks would see what I shared and immediately say, “You made that for ME!” What I found meaningful from living my days became a point of connection for others. At the time, I had a studio and was leading monthly circles, retreats, and birthday celebrations for all ages. I helped others find their creative voice. What surprised me immensely was that when I finally started using one of my all time favorite mediums – watercolors – openly, I found a new side to my own creative voice. I could see my growth as I looked back over the months of sharing which turned into years. I still listen for wisdom and share it in art and word.

Inspiration abounds – and practicing mindfulness opens me to the inspiration that infuses each day. Whether a single leaf on a walk or shapes in nature, I can be transported to seeing a work of art that I have yet to begin. I see the colors of my day as inspiration for a series of works. Long walks along the river and greeting the moon at night led to a gorgeous acrylic mixed media seasonal series I am so proud of. The colors, textures, and subtle markings stir my soul.

At the heart of what I do is to use my senses to listen, to observe, to feel, and to speak. I speak more through my art and my writing than I do my speaking voice, though I use it often enough. I believe that we each have so much within us to discover, to uncover, to heal, to excavate, to experience. I am called to help you to do just that. I am most excited to do that through my membership offerings at Silver Tree Art. My monthly online Meditate+Create offerings, Soul Care Weekly Newsletter, Downloadable Art Gallery, Seasonal Online Mini Retreats and offerings invite your creative spirit to flourish. I create rituals and rhythms that become a part of your experience in ways that bring restoration, energy, healing, and delight. It’s a rhythm that works and I can guide you along the way. Learning to pivot over the years has helped me to hone my skills and share it more widely.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I once had my dream studio. It was a glorious 400 square feet of space nestled in a historic part of town among the old live oaks and other trees. While it had its quirks and wasn’t fully accessible, the space held good energy and amazing light. My groups loved the space. It was truly dreamy and magical. While my rent was low for those 12 years, I made a difficult decision to move out of my studio over a huge rent increase. Almost three times what I’d been paying rent increase. With lower sales numbers and a slow return following covid’s hiatus from hosting groups in the space, I didn’t entertain the possibility of staying and paying that rent. I chose to let go of that dream space, especially since I was also working a full-time role outside the studio at the time.

I moved into a temporary studio which required that my group work have a longer hiatus. My business, Silver Tree Art, focuses on wise art for daily living and soul care goods aimed to add delight as well as hosting soul care retreats and gatherings. Taking away the in-studio gathering and retreat portion of my business, I lost a part of the heart of my business. I realized I didn’t have to give up that part of my work, but I had to change the way I hosted retreats. I could lead my groups and gatherings on zoom – and offer them more widely. I could take the traveling studio to other locations as I started out doing.

The space matters – especially in setting the welcoming tone for all who enter. The focus and heart of business mission matters. I could have been defeated over the move – it felt like going backward. While I let myself grieve, I took time to really consider what my business meant to me and what my business means and could mean to others. In holding both the grief and the gratitude, I’m paving the way for growth, learning what it takes to move forward here and now. Sharing the story matters.

I eventually moved the studio into where I am today, a lovely smaller space filled with light and life and energy for the season of life I’m in. Now I offer private mini retreats for folks in the studio and am in search of the just-right space to offer in person group retreats in 2025. I open the studio for Open Studio visits and sell from this space. It’s just right for this moment and stretches my creative muscles in delicious ways.

My pivot has also helped with my family’s needs and goals. I am able to be flexible as a working artist, parent, and minister. From my Studio I do mighty things. I make and sell original and reproduction art. I write and share mindfulness and creative practice as soul care weekly newsletter through my Substack – theministryofart. I write for my clients and membership at silvertreeart.com. I lead bereavement support through group facilitation online, facilitate a group of college students on mindfulness and spirituality practices, and I officiate weddings. My ministry of art is multifold.

All of this allows me to listen to my intuition, to investigate where the Silver Tree Art community’s needs are, and to care for myself and my family as I care for others. Now it’s time to expand the invitation for folks to join and participate in my Meditate+Create monthly experiences and soul care and collect my art for your own.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

As a creative who uses creativity as both my own self care/soul care and as income streams for my business to be built upon, I find as much value in pursuing what gives me life outside of creativity as well as within creative pursuits. I need a balance of quiet, time in nature, time doing nothing, meditating, exercising, and making art. I need to cook and eat good food to be at my best. I need to listen to what my body’s needs are in a given day and care for myself. Rest is as important as Play and Work.

I am a creature of habit and rely on my rituals and routines. Walking our pup Plum on the trails by the James river, I fill my cup with nature, movement, and near-solitude. So often I am inspired and write as I walk with talk to text. I let the creative spirit take the lead when she shows up. By relying on my rituals and routines while caring for myself through what I know gives me energy and life, I am primed for the moments of inspiration. Some walks call for gathering river water to use in painting, or picking up fallen leaves or blooms to draw later.

There is a beauty spontaneous inspiration that continues to show up throughout my days. That is, when I’m truly caring for myself. My journaling practices – both written and art – fan the creative fire. Chopping vegetables and making soup that will feed me lunch through the week is both visually stimulating and restorative. Gentle mornings savoring my hot cup of decaf and reading a book on kindle help my anxieties lessen. I am giving myself an unhurried pace so I can see what’s before me. I am in awe of an unhurried pace as a gift that keeps on giving.

There are days or moments that require a pivot – and I will give those days what is needed. At times my rituals and routines have to take a back seat to picking up a child from school and tending to their needs. I have the rituals and routines as a part of my life especially for these moments. I am able to pivot and be present to the moment without too much stress or worry. I adjust.

Long ago, one of my favorite humans who was also my ministry team’s leader during my work as a seminarian told me to only plan for 70% of my work time. He said the other 30% would be there for the moments of need – the calls that come, the moments we’re called to respond to. It leaves space to rest, too, and recover from the work that’s taken place. I find that advice to be some of the best I’ve received.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://silvertreeart.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/slsvinson
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/silvertreeart
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannevinson/
• Other: instagram.com/silvertreeartstudiotheministryofart.substack.com

Image Credits

Patience Salgado (yoga mat/book & wedding photos)