2025 and…Substacking?

And here I thought blogging was dead.

It’s been tickling the back of my awareness for some time, this wanting to return to writing. Design by Streetlight was born as a blog in 2012 with the real mission being to share my art with the world. I didn’t have much to say back then, and I don’t know that I will be exceptionally prolific now – but after 10+ years of going after this dream, watching my artwork morph through several different phases of expression and styles, I feel like I really do have some things to say.

I first heard about Substack while on a leave of absence from my real life and a short stint working on a cruise ship as their sketch artist. Those months away were some of the hardest and some of the best of my life in learning to trust the universe, it’s timing, time to work on my gift and talents, and learning to stand up for myself and say no. I returned home, completely bewildered to experience culture shock on the back end, and then returned mostly to my normal life as I had known it more or less for the decade previous.

But things have been changing. Small shifts, bigger ones, pathways beginning to carve themselves out in my life, in my beliefs about the world as it can be vs. what I was told it should be.

This post is half hello to old friends and an informal introduction to new ones. I’m Stephanie Fowler – artist, martial artist, wife and traditional career woman who is slowly carving my way out of that traditional career part. I’ll be duplicating all text here onto my blog over on my website, where you will also find much more about what I really love to do, which is paint.

But – feels good to get this first post out of the way.

Hello, Substack world. I’m here now. I’d love to form new connections in a new community, talk about the creative process and breaking free from the norm.

Happy New Year,

Steph