Check Out Vanessa Lowry’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Vanessa Lowry.

Hi Vanessa, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My career path has always contained graphic design at the core. But over the years it has evolved to include book design, writing, publishing, doodling, speaking, teaching, interviewing, podcasting, iPhone photography, and pattern illustration. Each experience has been a stepping-stone on a winding path that wanders in a new direction and then circles back.

Sometimes the path shift was on a choice and sometimes it was to move around an obstacle that appeared before me. Resilience for me is often a spark of inspiration added to an internal drive to explore solutions to the current challenge I’m facing.

I published my first book in 2009. From concept to launch, 30 Days of Gratitude, was completed in a month. The why of publishing was deeply personal with a side of business strategy.

On the heels of the mortgage crisis and recession that started in 2008, design projects were scarce. I had been pursuing a side business that went under, taking with it a significant investment of time and money. But I had made a lot of friends, contacts, and connections in the preceding years.

So, I emptied my merger retirement fund and looked for other ways to make ends meet. Many of my friends with small businesses were in similar straits.

A returning design client reached out about a cover design for his soon to be self-published book. Self-publishing was starting to take off, and I decided to move down this path and focus on designing more books. First, I needed more experience in publishing. The next step was to write and design my own book.

I’m a firm believer that even when circumstances are hard, there is always something to be thankful for. I wanted to embody that with a focused practice of gratitude. With that in mind, the idea for 30 Days of Gratitude was conceived as a journal with a different daily exercise each day for a month.

Since a deadline is always helpful for me to stay on track, I thought it would be ideal to launch the book in late October. I envisioned it as a useful tool for readers to focus on gratitude throughout the month of November, the season of thanksgiving. To meet my self-imposed deadline, I invited two friends, Robin Kirby and Carolyn Buttram, to help me write the exercises for what would be a free digital book, available to download before November 1st.

We all wrote. I came up with the overall design and an idea for a cover photo. Carolyn, a talented photographer, took the photo and set up a basic website. I formatted the book. And Robin started a page on Facebook, new on the social media scene at that time. We launched the book at the end of October and promoted it to our personal and professional networks. Within a few weeks of the book’s release, we were invited as a trio to our first speaking gig.

I also developed a presentation to educate self-published authors on the importance of a professionally designed book cover along with tips on how to work with a graphic designer. Over the next year, I presented that talk to business professionals and writers interested in self-publishing.

I’ve since developed and co-authored nonfiction books on a variety of topics including using the principles of improv in business, publishing as a marketing strategy, the benefits of choosing your thoughts, stories of living with creativity and ingenuity, and the magical benefits of listening. I’ve also contributed to books on writing and happiness.

Over the years, I’ve designed many books with memorable covers and custom interior formatting. In addition, I’ve created marketing materials for authors who are business professionals, consultants, speakers, and even a few memoir and fiction writers.

My own journey hasn’t always gone directly from A to B to C. My path regularly meanders into a side path that is unexpected. A place you would never see had you not been moving on the initial path. I enjoy making connections and introducing interesting people to one other to meet a need, to further a conversation, or spark a collaboration.

As a direct result of my focus on publishing, I was invited to be the once-a-month guest host of the weekly podcast Write Here, Write Now that aired on Business RadioX. Later I created my own podcast titled Art as Worship that was broadcast on Empower Radio.

The artists I interviewed for Art as Worship inspired me to start doing more of my own art, doodling as a meditative practice. As I posted my doodled art and gave art I created to friends, I started getting requests to teach. I developed a class I titled Doodling as a Meditation and created a companion workbook. Since I had interviewed multiple artists from Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church for Art as Worship, I asked to use their facility to teach a free pilot class.

The Art as Worship podcast and the doodling class opened the door for me to become Holy Innocents’ Artist in Residence for several years. I taught classes on doodling and creativity, facilitated African drumming classes, held a monthly Create and Commune event for creators to gather and make together, and developed a series of presentations titled Creating for a Living where eight artists shared their unique journeys of creativity and what they had learned along the way. The church also hosted a launch party for my first coloring book titled Love Coloring and for one of my collaborative book projects, The Magical Influence of Listening.

The legacy of Days of Gratitude continues. After the death of Carolyn in 2015 and Robin in 2016, I took over first the website and then the Facebook page. I updated the book in 2018 with tributes to both of my co-authors. The reach of the Facebook page has now grown to more than 290,000 followers.

I create and post a new graphic each day, a visual diary of sorts, on that Facebook page using one of my iPhone photos paired with a quote and message focused on encouragement, mindfulness, and gratitude. Partly because I need the reminder, but also because I want to encourage others to look for glimmers of gratitude in their own lives.

My photo safaris keep me grounded and grateful. It is easy to expand my lens on life by capturing beauty and other interesting things I notice. When I go for a walk, my cell phone is in my hand, tucked in my bra, or my pocket, but always ready to shoot. Blooms, butterflies, bugs, and birds are favorite subjects along with clouds, shadows, reflections, and unexpected found objects.

I’ve given several presentations about using your cell phone camera as a gratitude practice. Teaching others how a photo is a tangible way to share the wonder you notice with someone else, as well as a reminder to yourself.

I’ve published three coloring books, one in collaboration with nine other artists, several who had been guests on the Art as Worship podcast. I have also created customized coloring booklets and digital coloring page collections branded for businesses that can be used as promotional items.

A newer direction for my creativity includes transforming my doodle art into repeating patterns and surface designs that are available to be licensed. I’m inspired by nature and other things I notice out in the world. Using a blend of my imagination and original doodles, along with computer magic, I create art that can be printed on products to lift spirits with beauty and whimsy.

As different aspects of my life’s journey weave in and out from one another, I’m thankful for the opportunities that have opened for me. We are all shaped by our experiences, but also by how we choose to move forward. As my own creativity continues to evolve, I look forward to learning new things, making new connections, and helping bring more beauty into the world while moving forward with creativity, compassion, grace, and resilience.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I enjoy working with clients who are engaged in the process of what we are creating together, want to add value with the service or product they are offering, provide clear feedback, are fun to work with, and pay me quickly. Some clients are just not a good fit and I’ve gotten better at identifying those who are more quickly.

Multiple times in my career, a key contact left a firm where I was doing a significant amount of work and their replacement brought in their own freelance designer, leaving me scrambling to replace that revenue.

Big events in the economy have affected a client’s ability to move forward on projects or caused them to cut back on existing projects. Both after the tragedy of 2001 and the mortgage crises and recession that began in 2008, new design projects were scarce. Learning has always been important to me, even in ways unrelated to design. In 2002, the year following Sept 11th, I took a massage course that was an extension of the martial arts I was training in at the time. In 2009, following the financial disaster of that year, I bartered with a friend to take a reflexology course. Through these unrelated to business explorations, I met interesting people, some of whom became future clients. I also had a deeper understanding of the work I did for clients in the naturopathic fields of wellness. When the pandemic shut down everything in 2020, my largest client was an HR department of a corporation with thousands of employees. My busiest year with them was through that year as they stayed in touch remotely with their employees in new ways. I also helped coordinate videos and designs for a 20th anniversary celebration with employees around the globe. The next year, this client decided to hire more full-time staffers, and I’ve only worked on a few projects with them since then.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Key ingredients of my life and my work are creating beauty through art and design, capturing fleeting moments with photography that others might have missed, providing design support and consultation to fan the flame of an idea, learning about fascinating people, facilitating connections, and looking for glimmers of gratitude.

The past few years I have taken several illustration courses, including one focused on pattern design. I’ve worked on big and small projects for some of my favorite consultancy and author clients. I’ve circled back to book design for several new clients. I refreshed my interviewing skills with a client project that spanned most of 2024. I started a newsletter in 2022 with a weekly recap of my gratitude posts. I painted my first wall mural in my husband’s basement work out area of our home. In October 2025, I published my third coloring book titled Color Yourself Encouraged. And I’m in the planning stages for a new podcast focused on the role of intuition in creativity.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I have a certification in massage, another in reflexology, and a 2nd degree black belt in karate. My husband and I are having a 45-foot labyrinth built in our back yard.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.vanessalowrycreative.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vlowrycreative/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/daysofgratitudebook
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessalowry/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/vanessalowry
• Other: https://artasworship.podbean.com