Conversations with Eli Stewart

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eli Stewart.  

Hi Eli, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started doing psychic readings for people when I was a teenager. Then about ten years ago, I started to experience these impulses to sketch during my reading sessions. It wasn’t long before I realized I was sketching the departed loved ones of the people I was reading for. I began to practice my artistic skills, and at the beginning of the pandemic, I decided to take a year off from my psychic work to focus on developing my artistry. I joined several intensive trainings, and my artistic voice began to emerge. 

Today, I work equally between using my psychic skills to help others and producing mixed media artwork. While I have always been “artsy”, I now use my art to explore the intersectional spaces of spirituality, and gender expression, and to elevate awareness around marginalized communities. I am a perpetual student, so I am now teaching myself sculpture and taking coursework to apply my skill sets to psychic detective work. 

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’ve faced many challenges over the years which have informed my journey and my work. Several years ago, I had a deeply traumatic experience, and I didn’t do the work to help myself heal properly. This eventually came to a head during the pandemic, and with the help of my mental health team, my art became the healing space I needed to face the trauma that haunted me. 

While all of this was going on mentally, I also was diagnosed with hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. I finally began to get some answers around the chronic pain and fatigue I have experienced for most of my adult life. This really highlighted the crappy boundaries I had allowed in my life. I had to put my health first – a concept that was completely foreign to me – and slowly I found a way to adapt my art production schedule, availability to clients, and even my diet so that I can live a fulfilling life on my own terms and in a sustainable way. 

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I use my art to help connect people with their deceased loved ones, as well as exploring spirituality, mysticism, gender, connection, and healing. 

Art is a powerful catalyst for growth, healing, authenticity, and expression. To me, art is quite simply the magic that holds the universe together, and I am honored to be able to be a creative channel. 

In my art, I try to give voice to marginalized communities and to celebrate my queerness while exploring these spaces as they intersect with spirituality. For example, in my series “Figures”, I created 5 pairs of figurative paintings without facial features. The color schemes relate to personal healing, growth, and spirituality. The figures are faceless to encourage an inner awareness of how you view and relate to the pieces. 

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Growing up, I was a typical “gifted and talented” student from a poor working-class family in suburban Virginia until I was about 13. My health and multiple incidents of bullying prompted my mother to homeschool me for high school. I was a rather morose teen, though I was highly ambitious. Once my health improved enough, I explored several career paths and began offering tarot readings through a psychic fair before I even had my driver’s license. 

I’ve always been interested in metaphysical matters and spirituality, and luckily, I had my mother and grandmother to support my exploration and interests in learning about other beliefs and cultures. When I was 8, my family moved and I was first exposed to a multitude of races, ethnicities, and cultures for the first time. While it would be decades before I could articulate it, I became keenly aware of the differences and inequities that different people faced. 

I can’t remember a time where I wasn’t feeding my creativity. I grew up in dance and theater classes. I was always drawing and painting, but like most people I was steered away from art as a vocation, so it became one of my “quiet passions”. 

I didn’t realize just how strange my interests were, or just what a little weirdo I was until I was a teenager. I came out as gay when I was 13, and suddenly many of the slurs and bullying incidents came into perspective. Unfortunately, coming out only increased the bullying. Luckily, my mother did everything in her power to help me accept myself in spite of the challenges I faced growing up. These experiences later became the foundation of my artistic voice and pushed me to be able to empathize and understand other marginalized communities. 

Pricing:

• My reading rate is $150/hour

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.EliStewart.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/psychicinsight/
• Other: www.PsychicSpirit.Art