Meet the Founder
Finding myself here as an interior decorator was an interesting and winding journey, but I wouldn’t have chosen it any other way.
Let’s just start with the credentials and get the boring stuff out of the way. (For me, credentials mostly just prove myself to the people who care about societal standards.)
I have a degree in Art & Media from Southern Oregon University, a couple of years of experience working in an interior design studio, and eleven years of running and operating my own photography business.
Photography taught me so much about working with people, communication, organization, and, perhaps most importantly, how to really see. It taught me to pay attention to composition, color, light, texture, story, and all of the tiny details that somehow make something feel like you.
And eventually, I realized I wanted to bring that same way of seeing into the places we live.
Now, for the essence of who I am.
The choices I make in life are deeply rooted in my spiritual understanding of what it means to be alive. I try to live with presence—to actually be here for the life I am living—and I find that so much of my purpose revolves around creating and sharing beauty.
Because what is life without creativity? Without beauty? Without the little embellishments that make an ordinary Tuesday feel a little more special?
I don't believe beauty is frivolous. I think it is one of the ways we experience being alive.
And I believe our homes are one of the most intimate places we get to practice that.
Your home is not just a collection of furniture, colors, and things you happen to like. It is the backdrop to your life. It holds your mornings, your relationships, your quiet moments, your celebrations, your messes, your growth, your grief, your creativity, and all of the little rituals that make up being you.
So I don't believe your home should simply look good.
I believe it should feel good to live in.
It should support the person you are becoming. It should reflect what matters to you. It should make room for your weirdness, your beauty, your comfort, your memories, and your dreams. It should feel like a place where you can exhale and say, yes, this feels like me.
When I began thinking about this journey to become an interior decorator, I knew I needed a name that reflected my spiritual essence and my artistic side. I am the type of person who asks for signs and follows them when they find me. I had been asking and praying for a sign, anything. If you know me, one of my signs is the red tailed hawk and I always see them in times of change or perspective shifts. I was on a drive home from Portland when I asked for a sign, for a name to come through. The name washed over me, as if someone or something spoke it to me. I got goosebumps ‘Altared’ of course! It fit my spiritual and herbal background perfectly. It fit the meaning to live in the sacred, to ask for guides and help in ones life. Shortly after the name came to me I saw NINE red tailed hawks. More than I had ever seen before. I just knew that this was my ‘yes’ from the universe and that this was the name I would use to help guide people into loving their homes, and treating their homes like the sacred space they are.
One of my favorite explanations of an Altar is this:
“The altar is a powerful tool for rooting life in meaning, for visualizing hopes and for synthesizing that which is dearest, most poignant, and most powerful. Its purpose is to change consciousness, to elevate the supplicant’s thoughts and feelings. To make an altar, is to transform ones world. Like the continually unfolding experience of life, the making of an altar is a continual process — its elements added, subtracted, or modified according to season, occasion, or life event. Its meaning can reflect everything from the most traditional of values to the most immediate of aspirations, just as it can be composed according to a religious formula or personal inspiration.”
-In a Spiritual Style — The Home as Sanctuary
by Laura Cerwinske
WHY THE NAME ‘ALTARED’ ?
