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Carolyn Lewis Designs
26 Plays7 months ago
Carolyn Lewis is a master visual storyteller. With each new piece created, you can feel yourself going on the journey with her. Every composition begins with an intention. Emotion is encouraged - sometimes demanded. And, finally, when it is complete, a new perspective is offered.
Art has been therapeutic for Carolyn for many years and her love for the creative process has grown into her full time business — Carolyn Lewis Designs. Her studio gallery is located at 5846 Macklind Avenue where she creates her art, teaches art workshops to kids and adults, and displays her artwork on the gallery walls.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Farrah Sisters podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
We're recording right now? Recording right now? Hi there! Hello! Welcome to the Farrah Sisters podcast! Welcome to Farrah Sisters! I'm Katherine Barton and I'm Amy Campbell.
00:00:20
Speaker
Yay.
Meet Carolyn Lewis: Art and Experiences
00:00:21
Speaker
Awesome. So today is a wonderful day. We have Carolyn Lewis here to join us to talk about art and all the wonderful things she has talked about. Yes. I mean, I'm excited. I try to be exciting, but I'm excited. Oh, you are as a person. Yes. Yes. No. So I know Carolyn from my son's school. So she is a parent to one of Thomas's friends and we met I guess in like kindergarten.
Unexpected Connections: A Car Story
00:00:49
Speaker
Um,
00:00:50
Speaker
Yeah, we met in kindergarten and fifth grade. Do we have anything we need to share? Talk about anything that recently is well, you are moving forward in a.
00:01:12
Speaker
new to you kind of car. Oh, well, hopefully. Well, so I was healing from selling my car that I had for 12 years that I loved. 12 years.
City Home Transformations for a Growing Family
00:01:22
Speaker
And it actually was super, it was actually kind of a super cool thing because the person who contacted me was a friend of a friend. They found me on Facebook. Their last name is one letter different than my last name. They're referring it to their 15 year old son. And they are friends of a
00:01:40
Speaker
friend who's our cousin, and one of their kids is in our cousin's classroom in school. Like, it's all these connected things. They're in Olivia's class. Okay. Yeah. And so I was just like, this is perfect. And then they sent me the video of when they get to their son and they would be so like, happy and overwhelmed with it. And it was
Carolyn's Art Journey and Live Painting
00:02:00
Speaker
great. So it was a perfect goodbye. Yes. And I'm moving on. So anyway, that was my recent, wonderful thing. I like it. Yeah.
00:02:10
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm looking forward to changing our garage, our one car garage and our small city home into a family room because with a soon to be a teenager, I need some space man. I'm excited.
00:02:32
Speaker
So yeah, let's bring Carol in. Come in. Jump on in. Join the fun. Sit on our poof. Oh, yay. Get comfy. Oh my gosh. Aren't that pretty comfy? I know, it's not bad. Yeah. Well, when was the last time you sat on the floor?
00:02:47
Speaker
uh oh it's been a hot minute you know i feel like with age um i get a little um hesitant to um get on the floor for a long period of time because then you and then the lower back and the hips and all that stuff but no uh this is good this is fun welcome welcome to thera sisters i'm excited yes yes so nervous oh well you know we sometimes the nerves make you
00:03:17
Speaker
more excited. It does. They kind of physically feel the same. You're having the same physical response to anxiety and excitement with the heart rate, maybe the tummy. I was just talking about this on Instagram post today about being nervous and excited and like stepping out of your comfort zone.
00:03:41
Speaker
Um, and how beautiful and magical that is. Yes. Like I can be so scared to do it, but then when it actually happens, like that's where the magic happens. The beauty
Art Therapy and Healing with Art
00:03:55
Speaker
comes in. So was that in relation to, cause you just did like a live painting right at a fundraiser. So I've never done this before.
00:04:07
Speaker
I did a lot of paint, I brought all of my paints and canvas and everything. I did this lot of painting in front of like 300, 350 people. And usually I'm in my studio where I'm messy. Right. And no one's watching you. No one's watching me. That's 300 people. I had a dress up and I was nervous I was going to get paint on my clothes. But I started, I paint, I brought all my supplies there. It was at a country club. So it was a little bit,
00:04:36
Speaker
fancier painting space than my studio. And I did a painting and then they immediately auctioned it off. The first. First one. Right in front of everybody. Oh my gosh. Nervous and exciting. Nervous enough because it felt like I was. Is that scary? I felt like I was.
00:04:57
Speaker
Standing on the stage where everybody's watching me and I had no idea. What was that? Right, right. It was that feeling of like being Accepted I guess What if they don't yeah And I didn't know anybody right so my plea it was that was just gonna leave
00:05:27
Speaker
uh but it went really well and um this wonderful couple bit on it and they got it and they came and picked it up yesterday and it was just it just went to the perfect person i always say art my art or anybody's art always finds the perfect person yes the art chooses the person yeah and it did yeah you do have
00:05:51
Speaker
some great stories. And I don't want to sew real first before we keep going because we just jumped right now. We just did. Probably because we're comfortable with you. We already know you pretty well. Exactly. But tell us, Carolyn Lewis Designs, tell us all about Carolyn Lewis Designs. So I am a mixed media artist, which means I use a lot of different materials in my artworks. I like to use a lot of vintage fabrics and vintage papers along with acrylic paint.
00:06:20
Speaker
My background is in art therapy. So I've always loved being in the art field. I have degrees in art, but I also have degrees in psychology and have a master's in art therapy. And I used to be an art therapist at a children's hospital in Chicago for years. I was on the pediatric oncology unit. And then I also did, I did groups for
00:06:46
Speaker
seniors at an assisted living home and then I did an after-school program for at-risk teens. I've always found art has such a beautiful healing power because oftentimes we don't have the words but we can express our feelings through
00:07:08
Speaker
paint or drawing or tell your story through art. So my background is in art therapy. And then we moved to St. Louis in 2008. And I got pregnant with our first child and she was premature. And
00:07:33
Speaker
So we spent 77 days in the NICU. And so that really shifted my passion for working in a hospital setting because it was too much. It was very triggering for me. So we decided then that I was going to stay home with our children. We have two kids. We have a 14 year old and 11 year old. So what I started doing was while they were taking naps, I would go in
00:08:01
Speaker
create my artwork, which was in the laundry room. They were napping, I would
Balancing Business and Motherhood
00:08:09
Speaker
always do my art. And that was a way for me to just calm, be calm, and kind of regrew. Absolutely. It kind of gave me, I kind of tapped into my own identity rather than just be a mom. Oh, I like that. And so I just kind of started building my,
00:08:30
Speaker
Um, my little business and Carol and Louis designs came out because during their nap towns, I was designing invitations and stationery. Oh, I didn't know that. I mean, so that's where you started. And so that was in 2009. Okay. Um, and then I just.
00:08:57
Speaker
kind of shifted my creative process and in 2018 I really started going full-time in my art world and I really kind of tapped back into my painting passion and still was loving mixing all different kinds of mediums together because I just felt like
00:09:23
Speaker
one little medium just wasn't telling the whole story. So I like to layer and layer and layer and layer. And then, um, I became, yeah, I just decided in 2018, I was gonna go full time being an artist. That's awesome. And you're so good too with like
Community Art Initiatives During the Pandemic
00:09:41
Speaker
the community. Cause I remember during COVID, right? With
00:09:45
Speaker
Was it the couch or when was it? A lot of things happened during the pandemic. And what I found was that crazy time in our world became the best way, art became the best way to connect with people because we were so isolated. And so I started several different community projects with
00:10:11
Speaker
Well, the first thing I started doing was I got tired of being in my laundry room all the time with two kids doing virtual learning. And everybody hands up, isolated. I decided to paint our back fence, the mural. I had never done that before, but I wanted to make the alley a little bit brighter. So I started doing that. And then, did that like bring out
00:10:37
Speaker
your neighbors? 100%. Yeah, I had an audience. Yeah, it was really awesome. Yeah, that is awesome. Is it still there? So yeah, the answer is yes, there's a mural still there. But I not the one that I painted in 2020. There's a new one. I about two and a half years after I painted that I got real bored and I power washed it off. Oh my gosh. But so I did the the mural and I saw how
00:11:07
Speaker
the power of making a really boring space into something beautiful affects not just your own little, your own little home and yard, but it affects the whole neighborhood. So they're not painted a couch. It was called the sit down and listen bench. And that was in response to the George Floyd
00:11:31
Speaker
And so that just rocked my world. And so I created, it was a couch, it was a bench that had been in my parents' house for 25 years, but I painted it because I wanted to create a physical space for people to sit and look at each other and listen to each other, even though you didn't have, perhaps you didn't have the same opinions, the same world views, but you needed to sit down.
00:11:57
Speaker
and have a conversation and listen. And so for two years, this little bench traveled all around St. Louis to different businesses and different parks and homes and galleries. And so that really started my love for community art.
00:12:18
Speaker
And I'm
Empowerment Birds and Global Connections
00:12:19
Speaker
just telling you all the things. I'm just going to take off from the little, free little library. I'm going to take the book. So then I started an art gallery, which that took my passion for just the community art. So I have art around the world. It's in the street.
00:12:48
Speaker
Yeah. So that is, my passion is making art accessible to kids and adults with all experiences and seeing how art just benefits us all. Yeah. As it's our first language. Oh. When you're a little kid. Oh, I guess you're right. I never thought of it that way. You're just expressing it that way. Yeah. It's just communication.
00:13:16
Speaker
you know, around the world. So that's my, so now, so is
00:13:42
Speaker
not discriminate on the edge you up. But I cut the fabric off of the back and the in its frame and left to you. Oh, so in, so in 2023. Oh, yes.
00:14:08
Speaker
I can teach workshops for kids and adults and show my artwork there. So I went from the laundry room to the studio. That's my, that's where I'm at. Yeah, I like it. And you still do like those community famous, right? Because I remember like you have those
00:14:33
Speaker
like a scavenger hunt or something, where you'll bring your pieces of art and different businesses. I have two of them. I have two of them. They're upstairs. They do a little everything. So yeah, I think it's fun. I think it's, I do have since done many murals in the city. Yes, you have.
00:15:01
Speaker
And I think it's, I think it's hysterical that people know me through my murals that don't know what I look like. And then they see my artwork and they're like, you're not scared. So I'm like, you did that, what would I look like? So, cause you, your bird did one of the first egg hit. Did you say or am I wrong? To act. And I still did those. I called them my empowerment. They started out,
00:15:30
Speaker
um in 2018 I decided I made nine of them just for myself and they're a little tiny four by four canvases and I saved all my dry paint palettes that were on paper plates and I cut them out and I made a little bird shape and I got all the dictionaries from my grandparents and I would find empowering words and tear off the pages and I would cut them into a weave shape and that was the weave and then um
00:15:59
Speaker
I started using fabric backgrounds that were clothes of my kids that they had outgrown. Oh, I love that. And the sheets. I got one with, like, your grandma's. It was my childhood sheet. That's right. Yes, yes. And so that's the background. And then I took artwork that I was never going to use or didn't really love. And I would cut it up and I would make a border.
00:16:24
Speaker
put red shoes on each of my Empowerment Birds. And the reason why is because I wear red shoes on days where I need a little extra confidence. It's like a game changer for me. I put my red shoes on as kind of my superhero cape and it reminds me to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward. It gives me a little bit of confidence. So the Empowerment Birds started in 2018 and I made nine of them and I wasn't going to show anybody really
00:16:54
Speaker
I wasn't going to show them at all. And in a few weeks after I made them, I put them on Facebook and they all sold in like two hours. And then I have now since made almost a thousand. Wow. I only have two.
Art in Life Events and Milestones
00:17:12
Speaker
They have gone worldwide. And it's just another example of how
00:17:20
Speaker
art connects us. Well, and to kind of bring that into kind of our theme of healing and just like, what would you say how art has maybe healed you or how you envision art as a healing tool? So I have experienced, not just with my daughter being premature, but I lost my brother in 2008. And I have used art as a way of helping me through grief.
00:17:50
Speaker
It has been, it has helped me open up conversations about loss and about
00:17:59
Speaker
It has tapped into a whole different audience for me. It has been a way for me to share about challenges that oftentimes don't come up in just a normal conversation. But I have been able to do series of works about grief, and it's also helped me to tell my story. Not just about losing somebody, but also in celebrations about parenthood, about milestones that we go through
00:18:28
Speaker
being moms and sometimes those are like, you were just saying about our boys are finishing elementary school. This is a chapter that's ending. It's like bittersweet. It's beautiful to watch them grow, but the way my art is, it helps me process those
00:18:53
Speaker
just life. They're not challenges, they're just like life events. And to celebrate all of them, the ones that bring kind of sadness or grief or even ones that bring the joy and excitement and nostalgia. For
Workshops: Creativity and Healing
00:19:11
Speaker
me, it's a way for me to make sense of a lot of memories that I have that
00:19:20
Speaker
Um, you know, oftentimes that'll pop up that oftentimes they were just, we're just like floating in your head, but they were not shared. And then all of a sudden you put it out there and you realize how many other people, um, connect with it. Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And you know, you currently have a new, um, what would you call it? Collection collection. Thank you. Yeah. That represents this shift in parenthood, launching our children.
00:19:50
Speaker
I just launched a collection last week. It's called Courageous Flight, and it's all birds. But as a mom of two kids ending elementary school and ending middle school, and then my nephew is graduating high school, there's a lot of chapters that are ending, but also new chapters that are beginning and having that confidence as a parent.
00:20:19
Speaker
I've given them the tools. I hope I've prepared them. If I haven't, then I'll be ready. Maybe I'm still learning, but I haven't navigating these next chapters. But the whole collection was about watching your little babies fly. And just witnessing that.
00:20:49
Speaker
that white, but witnessing them become their own individuals. I love it. It's beautiful. It is beautiful. And I think, too, just the modality of art and just the ability to express emotions and memories and things in a more concrete way that you can kind of hold on to.
00:21:18
Speaker
And yeah, it's good. It's freedom. And with your workshops, because we've been to a couple of them and we are not, I am not confident in my abilities to do art. But when I go to your workshops, I can totally feel kind of that kind encouragement that maybe your training has helped with, but you're just so
00:21:48
Speaker
great with it. It's okay. Just put your, you know, paintbrush on. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, Katherine was, Katherine walked into my workshop and her first, her first comment was, I'm not paper. I can't even draw a stick. And I knew right then that she was going to be
00:22:12
Speaker
my favorite student in there. I was like, I can't wait to watch what happens in the next two hours. I can't wait to watch. And one of the things that I know I said in that workshop with you, and I say it in every workshop, and I learned this from one of my art teachers. Her name is Amanda Evanston, but she taught me and it has helped me to reiterate this.
00:22:37
Speaker
to my students is perfect is boring. And wonky is more interesting. And our society is so, so like focused on perfectionism, especially kids that they get frustrated, very easy, they don't get it perfect. And so our child's anxiety and being
00:23:03
Speaker
wonky or making your flowers, you know, crazy colors or have a stem, you know, I'll create it. It's more interesting. Yes. I love that. Yes. You can take away that wonky. Yeah. Well, I like it. When you said it, it's pretty dumb, right? Because I remember going into that work. It's not the first time I've ever done art or anything. But like, I remember just going in because it's not like a regular piece of my life every day.
00:23:30
Speaker
going in and being nervous like oh no what is this going to look like and am I even going to enjoy taking it home or am I going to be like yeah and so a lot of people are so encouraging of just um no yeah just put it on there just do this do this but because it's it's like I want some of the tools or I need the guidance of like how do I hold the paintbrush you know just like okay if I get started then I can't do something
00:23:55
Speaker
or just a little bit of that guidance of try this. Oh, okay. And then at the end, it was like, woo!
00:24:09
Speaker
You stopped and you looked. The workshop was that we did gratitude journals. And you look and you said, I did this. I made this. And the look on your face was just pure pride and joy. It was just, it was beautiful. It was like, see, you walked in doubting yourself and you are leaving like,
00:24:45
Speaker
And it's that little bit of confidence that you can put in your pocket when you start to suck out yourself.
00:24:52
Speaker
you can you know like i said a few minutes ago like getting out of your comfort zone and just kind of believing like this is going to be scary this is going to be weird that's where the magic happens and that's what's so great about your workshops versus like nothing against those um wine and things or whatever where everyone is making the same picture but it all looks different which is great but with you you're really kind of yeah there's this encouragement and um
00:25:22
Speaker
There's a, it's a safe space to be wonky, right? It's a safe space to go and practice and then come out and you did make your own thing and there is a confidence to it of like, and pride, like, yeah, I did do this. And yeah, it's just, it's such an enjoyable experience. I really enjoy your workshops. Yeah. Thanks. You're welcome. I had, oftentimes get people, they'll ask me, what, can I
00:25:48
Speaker
Can I do, you know, and then X, Y, and Z. My answer is always yes. Because I want them to try. I want them, you know, let's see what happens. So I do art camps for kids. I do workshops for kids and adults, but with kids, oftentimes they're like, can I? And I know during my camps, it'll take about a day and a half before the kids pick up on the fact that I say yes to every kid.
00:26:14
Speaker
I'll be careful. Do you ever say no? Like if I and I'll say yes. If it's dangerous of course I'm gonna say no but like if you're just experimenting then let's try it. And that's what builds confidence right when we do things that we're not comfortable in and we're able to succeed in that or at least
00:26:40
Speaker
Even if we don't succeed, whatever that looks like, even, but just we doing something that we walk through the discomfort. It's like,
Art as a Tool for Grief and Growth
00:26:48
Speaker
I was able to be uncomfortable and I still did it. Right. Yeah. My therapist talks about like, just being okay, sitting in the uncomfortable.
00:26:57
Speaker
I don't like to be uncomfortable. I'll tell you. No. I don't like it. I'm learning to accept that it's a part of your dream.
00:27:15
Speaker
I just feel so passionate about the healing power of art in a variety of ways, not just it's beautiful to look at, but it can tell a story. It can build confidence. It can be relaxing. It can be a distraction. All of the things. I just feel like that's the power of it. I love it. It's just heal. Yes.
00:27:45
Speaker
And so with healing, right, we can have glimmers and maybe some giggles. And so we like to ask people if they can think of a glimmer, which is right. Just like a moment where your heart swells and for a moment you can go, wow, I've grown. Any glimmers recently? You know, I have to come back to
00:28:16
Speaker
Well, it happened yesterday for the people that picked up the painting that I was talking about. They did a lot of painting. After I had finished it at that auction, I brought it back to my studio to like finish it all up and burnish it and they came to pick it up. And the woman walked in and she said, I knew right away when I watched you paint, I knew I wanted this.
00:28:46
Speaker
And she said there was something about this piece that I was just so attracted to. And she didn't even say anything to her husband.
00:29:00
Speaker
And he was the one that he bit and bidding war with. But but she said he knew from my just from the way I was watching you that I needed that we needed this piece.
00:29:21
Speaker
And that was such a compliment. It was just such a beautiful, like I had never met these people before and there was something that connected us. And her walking in my studio and yesterday for the first time and her telling me that I had no idea. She was like, my husband just knew.
00:29:42
Speaker
I think that's a beautiful thing too. It says so much about their connection, right? For him to be able to see that and take that in and be like, okay, yeah, we need this. Clearly they knew each other. It was really beautiful and it just made me so, it just filled me up. It was like a little bucket filler of like, man, these people, these strangers got you.
00:30:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And felt your energy and she just, yeah. But then things came closer too. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. That feels good. Yeah. That's a good glimmer. Um, I have to share something about glimmers. Okay. Um, please. So, um, I briefly mentioned that I lost my brother in September of 2008. And, um, and so I have a grief season when my daughter was born on September 9th.
00:30:34
Speaker
of 2009 and my brother passed away on September 14th of 2008. So September is a tricky time for me. It's like a grief season. So when this past year in the fall, I was talking to my therapist and we were saying, let's walk through the grief season in a different way. Like let's walk through and find the glimmers. Yes. And so
00:31:00
Speaker
that was just a new way for me to approach grief, was to find the beauty and the like, the little messages, you know, where like, we might overlook, cause we're so sad, we're like, kinda like down, which is fine, sadness is just a normal feeling. So that was a different way for me to walk through a grief season, is to just look for the glimmers. And I did an art piece about it, and it was called,
Authenticity in Art and Therapy
00:31:26
Speaker
always,
00:31:32
Speaker
It was the first case to sell in the art show. People walked out and they both just started crying. It was great! And I was like, wait, what's the crying? And then I started crying. I was like, it was really pretty. But it was...
00:31:53
Speaker
a new way for me to walk through a great season is to constantly look for those happy little moments or those tiny little messages that remind you that
00:32:03
Speaker
It'll be all right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, not even like just the label, like a grief season. I haven't thought about it in that way, but it gives it like space. It also gives it like its own time. It also gives it like, it's not going to continue like this forever. It kind of has its spot. And then being able to walk through it differently. I love that. Yeah. I'm going to use that.
00:32:27
Speaker
For me, it's almost like when the weather shifts, I feel like that's when the season starts. It's a weird thing. And then I know if I can get past a certain day, then I'm like, you're right. It kind of helps me.
00:32:46
Speaker
have a beginning in it. But also give that space to it. Like this is an important time for me. Right. I want to sit in this space a little bit. And I can give myself a little bit more grace. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So beautiful. Do we need to share a glimmer? Yeah, let's share a glimmer. I was just thinking
00:33:12
Speaker
in regards to like people who've passed on and our grandmother passed away a couple of years ago now. And so there'll be moments where I'm like, oh, grandma, you know, and I can't think, I'm trying to think of something really specific, but it could be just, you know, people talk about Cardinals and things like that. And so there'll be moments where I'll look, there was,
00:33:42
Speaker
There was a moment when I looked out our backyard from the kitchen and there was a, like a bright red cardinal sitting on a wire. Cause we don't have trees in our backyard, but we've got wires cause we live in the same, but it was just kind of sitting there. I'm like, right. And so, um, and yeah, you might feel that, uh, in this, but there's also this kind of brightness where there's that feeling of love, a glimmer of, yeah, I remember you. Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:11
Speaker
It's beautiful. And it makes you pause. Yes, it does. When I saw it, I like to pause and I thought about where I'm at. For me, it makes me, for me, it's the glimmer moments made me feel the most present. It's like, it feels like so here now. I like it. Yeah. For you?
00:34:40
Speaker
thinking about grandma. No, I think sometimes too, like glimmers, if we're not aware of them, they're hard to notice, you know, and so making sure we notice them so that we can really feel them. And I think
00:34:57
Speaker
Um, like if, if I were to think of, um, I don't know, I was trying to think of a glimmer and nothing was like popping up really easily, but just thinking about grandma, I guess. Cause I was recently thinking about her. I think we were talking about her and just how, um, she was just so funny. Like you would be like, I love you grandma. And she'd be like.
00:35:16
Speaker
Okay. And it was just a little thing where I was like, you know, she loved me. And she just, she just doesn't say it. But it was like little things like that, where we could just kind of be like, oh, this made me think of Grandma because she would have said this, or she would have made us laugh because of this. And that just happened a couple days ago. We were talking about Grandma and how she would have
00:35:43
Speaker
how she influenced our family and our mom and all of that. And in y'all's collection, humor is a part of two of y'all's relationships. Yeah, she was funny.
00:36:02
Speaker
how humor kind of lightens the heaviness of the world in any serious situations, I think that's what you're very...
00:36:16
Speaker
Oh goodness, that looks good. So the other part that we have to our podcast is a random book. Oh goodness. That we all kind of... Wait, don't we all three eat this one? Yes, so you're not alone. But you get to fix the question. And we don't really know what's in here, so... Yeah, we really don't know. Okay. Oh, I think I got two. Or maybe no, it's just one long one. Yeah, they're very long. Okay, yeah, let us...
00:36:44
Speaker
What is the main goal of your mode practice work? What is the main goal of your art work? I think my main goal is to be true to myself and to create authentically
00:37:09
Speaker
because when I create from my heart and create stories that are important to me, that's when I feel like I make a bigger difference and I connect with more people and not falling for the, you know, create work that's just gonna sell or like just for other people because that takes the power away
00:37:38
Speaker
creativity for me. So I think that's where I'm like, just be as true to myself and what are my goals and my plans. And then when you have those connections, right? They're real connections. Like the woman who, you know, got your artwork just recently and there was something there that was real from you and real for her. So that's a real authentic. Yeah. I like that. That's good. And just, I think on some level teaches all of us if we can be our true authentic selves,
00:38:08
Speaker
right, that the people we connect with, it's, there's an authenticity there. That's your true audience. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I like it. Okay. Oh, so. So for me, I guess how I would as a couple of therapists, right? So, um, and I use emotionally focused therapy, um, mainly. And so, um,
00:38:38
Speaker
I was thinking, I would say my main goal is understanding, but like when you put understanding out there in the world in a big way, in the sense of understanding each other, understanding ourselves, being able to communicate with the people we love and the way I define communication is understanding, right? When I
Empowering Young Artists and Closing Remarks
00:38:58
Speaker
can understand where you're coming from, what you do makes sense, right?
00:39:03
Speaker
your reactions, your behaviors, they make sense. They're not always perfect, right? They're not always nice. They're not, you know, they're not always kind or they're not always maybe what we want them to be, but when we can put understanding around them, then we can figure out what to do with that, right? Maybe we want to change something or maybe, I don't know. So the understanding of ourselves of, you know, when we see people out there
00:39:30
Speaker
like big emotions and big reactions and anger and all these things. It's like, where is that coming from? So there's empathy there too. Yeah. Right. I guess understanding, right. There's that empathy. Yeah. Well, and give, yeah. So having the empathy for others that I'm going to take the time to try and understand you understand where you're coming from. And then the work that I do help you and your partner find that space. Yeah. So that's very good. I was just sitting here and listening and thinking,
00:40:00
Speaker
Um, I know we can't do it both at the same time, but anyway, rambling, um, you know, two different parts of my brain happening here, but I was first thinking of goal, right? What is my goal? And I was like, Oh, well, maybe that's my goal for my clients. But again, my goal for my clients might not be their goal. So I kind of pulled back and like, what is my goal with the work I do? Um, so I guess it is kind of similar and I want to understand.
00:40:30
Speaker
um, my clients and what they're going through, um, so that I can help them. And so I guess, yeah, I really just want to, my goal is to be there with them. And so just trying to stay in that room with them to stay present with them and yeah, just to be there. Yeah. And like, listen and understand it sounds so simple, but there's like, it is hard sometimes to
00:40:59
Speaker
to be there and sit in all of it. To remind people, you don't have to be alone in this. You can go through all of these hard things, but I'll go through it with you.
00:41:14
Speaker
So yeah, I just like having you around. You're so sweet and good at what you do. And so let us know if people want to sign up for workshops or where can they find you, websites, Instagrams, locations. So my studio is located at 5846 Macklin Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri.
00:41:40
Speaker
And my website is carolamloisdesigns.com. On my website, I have all of my art workshops and my events coming up. And my artwork is on there and a little bit of the background, my background. And then I'm also on Instagram as carolamloisdesigns. And I keep that pretty updated and regular. And I'm also on Facebook saying carolamloisdesigns.
00:42:08
Speaker
Yeah, I do workshops for kids and adults and then I do private parties, a lot of them. Team, work teams come in there and do some creative team building. So you have some summer camps coming up for the kiddos too, right? Summer camps coming up. Dolores has signed up. Yeah, one day camps and people in camps.
00:42:28
Speaker
One of my my biggest like favorite things about doing camps is that we get to celebrate the young artists. So that is one of my passions is to really celebrate these this next generation of creatives. So camps are coming up and then I have workshops for
00:42:50
Speaker
adults yes so are we talking about oh playful by the time this is right but we are doing our launch party so if you were there if you didn't sign up
00:43:17
Speaker
We'll have to do another one so more people can come. Great. Thank you for coming. Thanks for coming, Anthony. That's just adorable. Yeah. And so we will put all this information in our show notes. Yes. And you can find us at theirsistersstl.com. And join us on Instagram. All of those good things. So keep listening. And keep having giggles and glimmers. Yes.
00:44:11
Speaker
43. Oh, almost right.