About
StephanieStairs
photo by Amaris Hames
Canvas Rebel
Read Stephanie's interview with CanvasRebel
Stephanie Lee Jackson
Founder
Stephanie came to sensory design through a spiral path. For more than twenty years, she was a professional fine artist, studying at the San Francisco Art Institute (BFA Painting) and the University of Texas at Austin (BA Plan II/Studio Art). She studied massage therapy at the National Holistic Institute in California, and built a massage practice specializing in pain relief.
Practical Sanctuary emerged when her art and healing practices converged.
She founded Healing Arts Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, co-founded Three Muses Artspace in San Francisco, and spent decades striving to create paintings which charged the space around them. Along the way she came to intimately understand color, light, visual design, acoustics, and cultural aesthetics.
At the same time, she studied the neuroscience of pain relief. Working with clients, she learned the ways in which our environment affects our nervous system, in both positive and negative ways. Having many friends and family on the autism spectrum, she became an accidental expert in psychology, neurodivergence and high sensitivity.
In 2012, clients began to commission design projects for their homes and offices. She combined her understanding of art, psychology, neuroscience and healing to create a specialized niche: sensory interior design.
Stephanie’s book, The Eccentric Genius Habitat Intervention: Interior Design for Highly Sensitive People, is a manifesto and how-to guide for designing spaces that support your genius.
The Eccentric Genius Habitat Intervention
Your space, your nervous system.
Most of us were never taught how our bodies actually experience a room–the light, the sound, the layout, the smell–and what happens when those things work against us instead of for us.
This free seven-day course is a gentle introduction to sensory design. Each day brings one exercise–noticing what you feel, photographing what you’ve been editing out, dreaming about what you actually want. The exercises are all optional, and you can go as deep as you like.
By the end, you’ll understand more about why certain rooms drain you, what your body knows about your home, and how to start shifting without stressing out.
Sign up below. Your first email arrives within the hour.
Practical Sanctuary, sensory interior design, specializes in interior design for highly sensitive people.
We help you create spaces which are:
