Tag Archives: inspiration

Jul31

40 Days of Giving Thanks

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heartGratitude is the best place to begin and end, isn’t it? No matter the circumstance, gratitude is always a good idea. Right around my 30th birthday, the idea of birthdays changed for me. The “me-centered,” gift giving, party-driven theme just didn’t fit. What felt more true was to use the date as a time of reflection to look back and give thanks, learn from mistakes and look forward to coming goals, dreams and ambitions.

This year, I have the blessing of turning 40, and how do I feel about that? A overwhelming sense of gratitude. Gratitude for a really great life, bumps and all. Grateful for where I am. Grateful for dreams and reflections. To celebrate the occasion, I am committing to 40 days of giving thanks. My actual birthday is Aug. 12, but I’m using Aug. 1 as a kick-off point. I’d be humbled and honored if you join me.

Here are a few things I am thankful that 40 years of life have thought me:

  • There is no “me.” We are all connected and one can not flourish alone. They say it takes a village to raise a child. I say it takes a village to live a life, and, most definitely, no one succeeds as a island. Every great person I know has a team along with them to champion them, encourage them, believe in them — and sometimes carry the load. Thank you to all my champions.
  • The present moment is all there is. It’s been said so many times before because it is true. Yesterday is history and tomorrow hasn’t happened. Come back to today. When you make art, this becomes even more apparent: You have to be so present with the process. Art isn’t math; it’s not about a formula to achieve a predictable result. It’s more a dance, and improvisation becomes important. So does not judging yourself.
  • Art changes lives. It has that power, and it embodies the miracle of creation all at the same time. While it is greatly undervalued in our culture, I feel lucky — no, unbelievably blessed — to live a life dedicated to art: making it, educating in it, and generally promoting its joy and depth.

All of this gratitude doesn’t turn a blind eye to the struggles and hardships of life. Life is indeed hard. It’s also as hard as you make it. It’s filled with ups and downs. While the making of art is my passion, I would be doing you, my readers, a disservice to pretend it flows out of me like a fountain. Sometimes it’s an all out wrestling match, and I don’t win. Every day, in fact, there are struggles with the paint/canvas and myself. We argue, I get distracted, check my email way too often, worry about the “business”  side of things. I try really hard to not judge this and just accept it is the way of things.

While I am committed to 40 days of giving thanks, I will do my best to share some of the struggles as well, because I think all too often, we are not honest with each other about the difficulties. We are all left feeling alone, and like perhaps we are the only ones who wrestle with this or that. Let’s together also give thanks for the struggles.

With humble thanks, I invite you to join my journey here and on Facebook, and together we will give a whole lot of thanks! I invite you to share with me what you are thankful for, and let’s see if we can start a mini revolution of gratitude!

Jun11

Meet the SSA Team: Stephanie Schlatter

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In a series of blog posts, we’ve been introducing the team behind Stephanie Schlatter Art: the folks out on the street promoting my artwork, keeping the website and social media humming along, etc., while I’m in the studio focused on creating! Today we wrap up with …

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Photo by Todd L. Church

Stephanie Schlatter: the SSA ship captain, a closet marketer and businesswoman, sometimes photographer and writer, but above all, a creator and painter.

I was born and raised in Grand Rapids, and I’m happy to still call this great city my home. It is my hunger for adventure, for travel, that started this whole ball rolling. Yes, it was because I traveled that I became an artist. My love of recording the magical places I visited sent me back to college at 27 with a desire to learn photography. I soon discovered that my passion for photography was only for travel photography, but that even that left me feeling limited. At the same time, I had a wise photography teacher who encouraged his students to take an art class. Nothing, he said, would teach us more about composition and seeing. Having taken every art class I could in high school, I was more than happy to oblige. From that first college art classroom, my life changed and I never looked back.

I am happiest when I have long stretches of time in the studio to create. It is the joy of creating something where before there was nothing that fuels the fire in my belly and keeps me returning to the canvas to see what else can be done. A curiosity for life is perhaps the biggest driving force in my work. I love to paint figuratively, landscapes and abstract; the subject simply has to interest me, but it’s not so much the subject as the process. How can I continue to take my work to the next level of my own satisfaction, to push my limits as a painter and enter a piece from a new direction? Then, when a piece is complete, I send it out into the world, where it takes on a new life: that of the viewers’ interaction with it. I am not concerned with how a piece is perceived or interpreted as much as its ability to bring joy to the viewer, evoking emotion and, ultimately, smiles.

That is just one part of what I do. I have recently learned I’m a better painter when I honor my other interests as well. I do love the art of business, and I’m afraid I have been known to exhaust my team with my marketing ideas. It’s the way people work, perceive things and respond that fascinates me from a marketing and business perspective. I like looking at the big picture and steering the ship of my small business. My desire is for my SSA team to feel empowered to be creative themselves and honor their own skills and abilities — that excites me. I work with many great people and feel humbled and honored to know them.

At the root of it all is a desire to give back — not only to my team, but to my roots where it all began: travel. The people and places I visit in my travels have had, and continue to have, a lasting effect on me. I have long loved a quote by St. Augustine: “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” Reading the “book” of travel and people and places of the world expanded my views, broadened my horizons, left me with beliefs and interests I would not have had were it not for my experiences globally. I feel a desire to give back for all I have gotten from the places I have been, so eight years ago I launched a division of my art called Art Aid International, a project that brings art to children in Ethiopia while also using art to raise money and awareness for education. That completes the circle for me: make, create, art, business, marketing, giving, philanthropy repeat. It’s not always simple, but it’s always worth it!